Backbase, the creator of the Engagement Banking Platform, recently announced that Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MSB), has made a strategic investment in the Backbase Engagement Banking Platform, with local implementation support from Backbase’s partner, SmartOSC, a premium digital enabler. This milestone marks a pivotal step in MSB’s journey toward customer-centric modernisation, advancing its digital factory, and delivering seamless experiences that drive financial innovation in Vietnam.
As one of the pioneering banks implementing digital transformation in the market, MSB aims to become a bank with a leading digital platform with the best customer service experience. Building on a robust digitalisation strategy, MSB has transformed its offerings to bring streamlined, accessible financial solutions to both individual and corporate customers. MSB is currently serving 5.5 million customers.
By adopting the Backbase Engagement Banking Platform, MSB is unifying its in-house applications onto a best-of-suite anchor platform. This strategic shift enables MSB’s digital factory to deliver a seamless, end-to-end digital banking experience by building on the platform—from onboarding and daily transactions to product holding—enhancing customer engagement, simplifying product bundling, accelerating unique feature development, and reducing cost-to-serve for MSB’s 5.4 million retail and 100,000 enterprise customers. MSB’s goal is for the platform to enable an omnichannel, frictionless banking journey that elevates the modern customer experience.
“At MSB, we are advancing our digital factory by combining the strengths of Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform with our in-house developments, gaining refreshing flexibility to seamlessly integrate and elevate our existing capabilities,” said Nguyen Hoang Linh, CEO of MSB.
“Through this platform, we will unify, modernise, and launch our retail and business banking channels on a single platform within the next 12 months, achieving the speed, agility, and control needed to scale differentiated customer experiences. This investment aims to lower our cost-income ratio by 8%, reduce cost-to-serve by 30% through frictionless onboarding-to-usage journeys, and increase our CSAT scores to 93 for retail and 85 for enterprise banking,” he added.
With the platform as its foundation, MSB can unify and streamline customer journeys, significantly reducing time-to-market and delivering seamless, high-impact banking experiences that set new benchmarks in Vietnam’s financial landscape. Its flexible architecture empowers MSB to develop a unique technology ecosystem, integrating seamlessly with other platforms to drive even greater synergy and innovation. MSB estimates a 30% increase in active digital customers and a 20% – 40% increase per year in digital acquisition by delivering end-to-end digitalised experiences after launching the platform.
“Rather than uproot and restart, the ‘adopt and build’ approach enables MSB to reinvent their existing channels and apps, upskill their digital factory, and empower in-house talent to unlock new efficiencies and innovation. Backbase provides a strategic architecture that complements and amplifies MSB’s current efforts, fostering growth without disrupting the valuable work already in place. This approach ensures business continuity while advancing their digital transformation on their terms, driving progress that aligns with their established processes,” said Riddhi Dutta, regional vice president, Asia of Backbase.
SmartOSC will play a key role in localizing the Backbase platform to meet MSB’s specific needs, ensuring seamless alignment with local expectations and regulatory requirements. With their experienced resource and deep knowledge of Vietnam’s financial sector, SmartOSC is well-positioned to help MSB achieve its goal of launching both retail and business banking channels within a year. This partnership highlights the importance of local expertise in the digital transformation process, ensuring a smooth and timely deployment that maximizes the benefits of the platform.
“We’re thrilled to be the implementation partner for this project. Our goal is to make this collaboration between MSB, Backbase, and SmartOSC a leading example of technology that empowers human ingenuity,” said Chi Hieu Nguyen, co-founder & chairman of SmartOSC.
“Today’s customers expect seamless, omnichannel experiences, not just multichannel interactions. Banks must bridge this gap and constantly innovate in the digital realm to drive growth and engagement. Using Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform, we’re confident in delivering this project on time and supporting MSB’s mission to become a bank everyone wants to join and no one wants to leave by leveraging technology to meet clients wherever they are and serve them precisely how they prefer,” he said.
With this investment, MSB aims to enhance key performance indicators aligned with its five-year strategic plan including increasing omnichannel acquisition by 10-20% through end-to-end digital journeys, growing digitally active customers to 20% for retail and 23% for enterprise banking, and ensuring 60% of retail and 40% of enterprise banking customers are acquired digitally. The adoption of the Engagement Banking Platform is designed to help MSB reach these milestones and solidify its goal of becoming the most customer-connected and profitable bank in Vietnam.
