By leveraging Finastra’s Essence advanced cloud-native core banking platform, ORO Bank has established itself as Asia’s first full-reserve digital bank, enhancing operational efficiency and scaling its global payment capabilities whilst ensuring robust security and digital compliance.

Introduction: Powering Asia’s First Full-Reserve Online Bank

ORO Bank is a pioneering force in digital banking, located in Bhutan; the bank’s core philosophy revolves around a model where customer deposits are fully backed by reserves. This design significantly minimizes the risk of insolvency that comes with fractional reserve banking. Serving as the official bank for the Gelephu Mindfulness City Special Administrative Region (SAR), ORO Bank aims to redefine banking standards by offering secure, efficient, and innovative financial services tailored for both individuals and businesses.

The global financial landscape has brought to light certain limitations within traditional banking models, ORO Bank sought to build a more secure financial ecosystem – a full reserve banking model that ensures greater protection for customer deposits. The goal was clear; to establish a bank that could not only provide financial security but also be capable of rapid growth, offering flexible and scalable banking solutions. To achieve this, ORO Bank partnered with Finastra, a global leader in financial software technology, implementing Essence, the cloud-first next generation core banking solution to support their digital transformation journey.

“We are Asia’s first full reserve digital bank, and we believe in safe and sustainable banking, providing peace of mind for our customers with our full reserve banking ethos, avoiding pitfalls of the fractional reserve system. Finastra’s expertise in cloud-first deployments and supporting new digital banks in this region is second to none. We knew working together would result in a wonderful partnership that has helped us bring our vision for a different kind of bank to life.” Mike Kayamori, CEO, ORO Bank

The Challenge: Securing Trust and Scaling Operations

The challenge ORO Bank faced was not just to introduce a new digital banking model but to ensure that it was scalable, secure, and reliable. Given the high stakes of launching Asia’s first full-reserve digital bank, ORO Bank needed a robust platform that could handle complex banking operations while maintaining the integrity of its core philosophy full deposit security.

The bank required a flexible, modern core banking platform that could handle high transaction volumes, support rapid product innovations, and facilitate consistent integration with global partners. Above all, the platform had to be secure, ensuring that the fullreserve model could be effectively implemented and trusted by customers.

The Solution: Finastra’s Cloud-Native Essence Platform

Finastra’s Essence core banking platform emerged as the ideal solution for ORO Bank’s digital transformation journey, providing a cloud-native infrastructure that ensured scalability, flexibility, reliability and security. This platform was tailored to meet ORO Bank’s ambitious growth objectives, allowing for the rapid innovations and deployment of new financial products, while maintaining high standards of security and regulatory compliance. Built with an API-first architecture, Essence provided the agility needed to keep pace with market demands and expand seamlessly.

Key Features of this Solution:

Cloud-Native & Scalable: Designed to support rapid growth, ensuring ORO Bank could scale its operations effortlessly.

API-First Architecture: Enabled real-time processing and seamless integration with over 200 fintech partners, fostering collaboration and efficient expansion.

Modular Design: Highly adaptable to ORO Bank’s specific needs, allowing for customization and flexibility as the bank’s services expanded.

Structured Deployment: Finastra’s Fusion Methodology ensured a systematic, well-structured approach to implementation, enabling the bank to launch its digital services in just six months.

Comprehensive Data Governance & Security: Equipped ORO Bank to meet international regulatory requirements, ensuring the protection of customer data and maintaining security standards throughout the process.

Finastra’s continuous support during the implementation phase was critical in ensuring a smooth migration to the new platform. This allowed ORO Bank to maintain service continuity, keeping its operations seamless while transitioning to an advanced, futureproof system.

Implementation Process: An Agile & Structured Approach to Digital Transformation

The implementation of Finastra’s Essence platform was carried out in a structured, phased approach to ensure smooth migration and minimize disruption.

• Assessment & Planning: Conducted a comprehensive audit of the bank’s existing infrastructure to understand the requirements for a new core banking system. This initial phase focused on identifying the scalability needs, compliance requirements, and security specifications.
• Customization & Integration: The platform was customized to fit specific needs of ORO Bank, including supporting multi-currency and multientity operations. Custom APIs were developed to integrate the platform with existing thirdparty solutions, ensuring flexibility and seamless operational flow.
• Data Migration: Millions of customer records were successfully migrated to the new platform using Finastra’s Smart Migration approach. Completed in under two months, without any disruption to customer services, allowing the bank to continue operating smoothly throughout transition.
• Launch & Go-Live: Deployed in stages, ensuring that all essential banking functions, such as account management, transactions, and payments, were fully operational. A testing phase, included sandbox trials and parallel runs, ensured bank could handle real-time transactions smoothly.
• Post-Launch Optimization: The implementation team worked closely with ORO Bank to continuously monitor and optimize the platform’s performance. This post-launch support allowed the bank to refine its operations and ensure that the system remained scalable as the business grew.

Benefits Achieved: Transforming Digital Banking at Scale

By adopting Finastra’s Essence core banking platform, ORO Bank has seen substantial improvements across various aspects of its operations:

• Transaction processing time was reduced by 40%, increasing the bank’s ability to handle large volumes of transactions without delays.
• The platform enabled ORO Bank to process crossborder payments to over 190 countries, expanding its reach and positioning it as a key player in the international payments space.
• The platform’s built-in compliance features ensured ORO Bank could meet all relevant regulatory requirements, including those set by local and international authorities, ensuring full security and trust in the bank’s operations.
• By moving to a cloud-first infrastructure, ORO Bank significantly reduced its IT maintenance costs, reallocating resources to product innovation and customer experience improvements.
• The cloud-native platform provided ORO Bank with the flexibility to scale rapidly, supporting the bank’s long-term expansion plans without worrying about infrastructure constraints.

With the full-reserve banking model fully implemented and backed by secure, transparent technology, ORO Bank built a strong foundation of customer trust and confidence.

Conclusion: A Future-Proof Banking Foundation

The successful implementation of Finastra’s Essence core banking platform has positioned ORO Bank as a leading full-reserve digital bank in Asia, fully equipped to meet the growing demands of the financial market. The cloud-native platform has not only provided the bank with the scalability needed to grow but also ensured that it remains compliant with international regulations, enhancing its reputation as a secure and trustworthy financial institution.

With the full-reserve banking model in place, ORO Bank has created a stable foundation for long-term growth, offering products that meet the needs of a diverse customer base while maintaining the highest standards of security and compliance. The partnership with Finastra has given the bank the technological edge to continue innovating, with plans to expand further into global markets.

Key Facts

Supplier: Finastra
Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
Client: ORO Bank
Headquarters: Bhutan
Solution: Essence cloud platform, API integrations