Techcombank, one of Vietnam’s leading financial institutions, on Friday announced that it has implemented the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to drive its data and AI transformation across the organization.

This new partnership is part of Techcombank’s significant investments in digital, data, and digital talent under its 2021-25 transformation plan, which is enabling it to harness the power of data and AI to create unprecedented value for customers and drive faster, more profitable growth for the bank.

Over the last three years, Techcombank has been consolidating data sources from across the bank and migrating them to the cloud to create a bank-wide ‘data brain.’

The migration to the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform will enable Techcombank to more efficiently unify data from over 50 systems, improve governance, streamline daily operational analytics pipelines, and use advanced analytics tools and AI to create more meaningful and personalized experiences for customers.  

“With over 14.4 million customers and a network of 315 branches, Techcombank processes vast volumes of data across its operations to make customer-centric and data-driven decisions,” said Santhosh Mahendiran, chief data and analytics officer at Techcombank.

“Databricks provides the technological foundation we need to unify all our data and advance our data analytics and AI capabilities.

“This will enable us to unlock more advanced AI use cases, enhance the customer experience, and drive business growth.”

Powering a more personalized banking experience with Data Intelligence Platform

The Databricks Data Intelligence Platform democratizes access to analytics and intelligent applications by marrying customers’ data with powerful AI models tuned to the unique characteristics of their business.

The platform is built on a lakehouse foundation of open data formats and open governance to ensure that all data is completely within the customers’ control.

Using Databricks, Techcombank’s ‘customer brain,’ a customer 360 tool that centralizes all customer data within the bank, provides comprehensive insights that are pivotal for crafting targeted marketing strategies and personalized product offerings.

By understanding customer behaviors and preferences at a granular level, Techcombank can offer precisely timed and contextually relevant solutions across digital and physical touchpoints, enhancing customer satisfaction and engagement.

The ‘customer brain,’ which is built in-house, acts as a single-layer orchestration across the bank’s channel.

Techcombank now operates more than 45 advanced machine learning models to predict customer needs with precision.

It has also implemented MLflow to manage the lifecycle of machine learning models and Unity Catalog to govern centralized data.

Over the next year, the bank plans to further centralize thousands of machine learning features and models on the Databricks platform, driving predictive analytics and supporting its broader digital transformation goals.

Using AI to drive business growth, mitigate risks

With Databricks, Techcombank has also introduced key solutions that are reshaping its digital banking services:

* AI-driven lead management system: Techcombank’s internally developed AI program called ‘Lead Allocation Curated Engine (LACE)’ optimizes lead management and provides relationship managers with enriched insights for smarter lead allocation to drive business growth.

* AI-powered program for digital banking inclusion of small businesses: An AI-powered GeoSense assists frontline workers with analytics-driven insights about which small businesses and merchants to approach – including those running out of their households – to engage in the bank’s digital ecosystem.

* Fraud prevention and risk management: Machine learning models on Databricks help Techcombank detect and mitigate fraud while improving credit risk assessments, ensuring secure banking operations.

Democratizing data, AI to nearly 1,000 users across the bank

With a unified and simplified Data Intelligence Platform, nearly 1,000 of the bank’s employees are now able to access data for data-driven decisions and reporting, democratizing data and AI access beyond the IT and technical teams.

Techcombank is building a data-driven culture through data democratization and enablement and has the highest number of learners in ASEAN who have spent more than three hours taking courses on Databricks Academy.

The bank also has plans to further upskill 1,000+ employees in data and AI in the coming years, accelerating data and AI competency across the company and enhancing the capabilities of their staff.

The bank’s workforce already includes over 1,800 data scientists, analysts, engineers, and IT-related staff that are enabling its transformation into a banking institution powered by data and AI.

“We are pleased that Techcombank has selected the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform as the foundation for its data and AI transformation,” said Cecily Ng, vice-president and general manager of ASEAN and Greater China at Databricks.

“Unifying a vast amount of company data across numerous systems is critical for companies to apply AI and derive data intelligence to truly deliver meaningful insights for more personalized and tailored services.

“This positions Techcombank to lead the digital transformation in Vietnam’s banking industry, setting a new benchmark for customer-centric AI-led banking.”