UnionBank innovates operations on the cloud

SAP SE announced earlier this month that UnionBank of the Philippines, a publicly listed universal bank, commenced S/4 HANA hosted out of HANA Enterprise Cloud (HEC) to fuel its digital transformation in the banking sector.

Justo A. Ortiz, chairman and CEO of UnionBank, shared that in its 35 years of existence, the company believes that the mission to “transform the bank for the digital economy” is the most revolutionary and gigantic step that the bank has taken toward enabling its customers through digital transformation.

“We wanted to create a core banking system that will help us to decentralize our functions for booking, establish a Shared Services framework to support our HR functions, and automate our operations focused on Enterprise GL, Planning and Budgeting, Procurement, and Analytics. This development is vital for us to meet the ever-changing needs not just of our customers but also our employees,” said Mr. Ortiz.

Before tapping SAP, UnionBank faced significant challenges with financial management, manual Excel-based processes, budget tracking, account and product profitability reports, reimbursement and disbursement system, and project management, among other things. Now, with S/4 HANA hosted on HEC, UnionBank can reduce its business complexity with minimum human error and intervention, allowing the company to boost its productivity and efficiency.

“We want to further establish our position as the most innovative and pioneering bank in the country to advance its operation in the S/4 HANA hosted on HEC as we take on a cloud-first strategy with the help of SAP. But more than that, we see this as a chance for us to streamline processes and meet business needs in a secure, safe, scalable, and robust cloud environment,” said Henry Aguda, chief technology and operations officer and chief transformation officer of UnionBank.

HEC, a private cloud offered by SAP, helps customers to deploy HANA applications such as S/4 HANA, a realtime enterprise resource management suite that supports different lines of business run simple in the digital economy. With S/4 HANA hosted out of HEC, UnionBank can now focus on solution breath and simplified user that will help it lean toward digital transformation.

“Going digital can provide an immense change in today’s business environment, especially with the way banking in UnionBank is carried out. We hope that by running live with S/4 HANA hosted through HEC and with our expertise in digital technologies, UnionBank can operate and deliver more value to their customers in a seamless and engaging way,” said Edler Panlilio, managing director of SAP Philippines.

SAP considers the unique industryspecific needs of UnionBank in a tightly regulated industry and understands the role that technology plays in shifting the dynamics of success. SAP believes that this solution is the cornerstone of future innovations as UnionBank begins to explore blockchain technology, in-memory computing and big data. Through this, UnionBank can see that the system is ready to support new technologies and solutions in the market.