UNIBank AD Cuts Time to Build New Financial Services from Four Weeks to One Day, Attracts Foreign Investors with Integrated Banking Platform
 
 

UNIBank AD Cuts Time to Build New Financial Services from Four Weeks to One Day, Attracts Foreign Investors with Integrated Banking Platform

  • Oracle Customer:  UNIBank AD
    Location:  Skopje, Macedonia
    Industry:  Financial Services
    Employees:  390
    Annual Revenue:  Under $100 Million

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UNIBank AD, established in 1993, was one of the first banks to begin operation following the independence of the Republic of Macedonia, a country with 2 million people and a candidate for European Union (EU) membership. Today the bank has 200,000 clients, 36 branches, and the largest number of ATMs in Macedonia. UNIBank was the first bank in Macedonia to introduce electronic payment via the internet and the first financial institution to introduce chip technology as security protection for card purchases. The bank increased income by 1.27% in fiscal year 2011 and grew its customer roster by 6.79% in the same period.

UNIBank standardized its core banking processes on Oracle FLEXCUBE to streamline and automate functions, improve its ability to innovate and launch new products faster, and attract EU and international investors. The bank met 80% of its needs using out-of-the-box functionality, went live without disruption to customers, and has a banking platform that it can upgrade to meet evolving customer and market requirements.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from UNIBank AD

  • "Oracle FLEXCUBE boosts our competitive edge in the highly challenging, fast-changing, increasingly international financial environment that is Macedonia today." – Svetozar Popov, Executive Director, UNIBank AD

  • Continue tradition of being first to market in Macedonia with new loan products, payment cards, and savings plans without compromising usability or security
  • Provide innovative bundled solutions to customers, such as mortgage and life insurance and insurance for credit and debit cards, rapidly and inexpensively
  • Improve profitability and extend customer reach by attracting international investors ahead of Macedonia’s entry into the EU
  • Reduce office overhead and cut transaction processing time with automated handling and straight-through processing for fund transfers, foreign exchanges, and point-of-sale transactions
  • Ensure unbreakable security for customer transactions and streamline compliance with evolving regulatory requirements in Macedonia, the EU, and other regions

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Standardized core banking processes by replacing 15-year-old, multivendor, and in-house solutions with Oracle FLEXCUBE to gain a single, integrated banking platform
  • Created an automated payments hub for domestic and international payments that is compliant with Macedonian and international security and traceability regulations
  • Incorporated in-house banking software and third-party tools from the legacy platform without the need for costly interfaces using Oracle FLEXCUBE’s standards-based, service-oriented architecture (SOA)
  • Used Oracle FLEXCUBE’s SOA capabilities to create new customer offerings, such as bundled mortgage and credit card products, loan and life insurance, and other innovative banking products by linking existing service components
  • Benefited from automated process orchestration and integration to build new customer offerings in a single day, a process that used to take up to four weeks
  • Reduced administration overhead at branches through service automation and improved customer service
  • Increased ability to attract investors from abroad with multilingual and multicurrency functionality
  • Benefited from Oracle FLEXCUBE’s foreign exchange and trade finance functionality to offer import, export, and credit documentation services as core offerings to clients
  • Calculated interest earned daily, as opposed to weekly, using Oracle FLEXCUBE, which gives decision-makers a near-real-time view of available capital
  • Fulfilled 80% of requirements out of the box, using Oracle FLEXCUBE’s flexible, comprehensive functionality
  • Configured Oracle FLEXCUBE to meet complex, local regulatory requirements as Macedonia starts to harmonize governance and risk management with EU states in preparation for membership
  • Gained ability to upgrade the banking platform in line with go-to-market requirements and to innovate new service offerings in line with customer expectations by adopting additional functionality from the Oracle FLEXCUBE suite

Why Oracle

UNIBank chose Oracle FLEXCUBE for its global market leadership as it is the preferred solution for 390 financial institutions in more than 125 countries. Already used by its sister institution, First Investment Bank Bulgaria, to transform banking efficiency, Oracle FLEXCUBE was better positioned than competitor solutions to meet the dynamic needs of an increasingly competitive and regulated market.

"Oracle FLEXCUBE’s unified banking platform has transformed our operations, streamlined administration, accelerated time to market for new services, and will enable us to capitalize on emerging opportunities," said Svetozar Popov, executive director, UNIBank AD.

Partner

Oracle Partner Balkan Financial Services (BFS) delivered a turnkey solution to UNIBank that encompassed requirements evaluation, gap analysis, product parameterization, user acceptance testing, data migration, post implementation support, and user training. BFS continues to provide remote system management and ongoing consultancy and support to ensure 24/7 service availability for UNIBank and its customers.

"BFS met all of our expectations," Popov said. "It enabled us to go live in a single, big-bang implementation without downtime to customers, which made the transition as painless as possible to our staff."