Named after the country’s national bird (the raven), ORO Bank is geared towards sustainable, scalable and secure financial operations
As part of a visionary strategic initiative — the Gelephu Mindfulness City Special Administrative Region (SAR) announced by Bhutan, a cloud-first all-digital bank has been launched in what is ranked as the world’s happiest country.
Called ORO Bank, the financial institution is an integral part of a thriving economic center, integrating the core principals of Bhutan’s tenets of Gross National Happiness philosophy: equitable economic growth, cultural preservation, environmental sustainability and good governance.
ORO Bank serves individuals and businesses in Bhutan and around the world, with a specific focus on providing safe, innovative and sustainable banking. Said its CEO, Mike Kayamori: “We are Asia’s first full digital reserve 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.”
Kayamori also noted: “Aligned with the principles of the Gross National Happiness philosophy we’re bringing financial infrastructure to enable personal, corporate and financial growth in an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable manner. In addition to serving the Mindfulness City, we aspire to become the preferred bank for global startups and innovative emerging businesses.”
The bank has been able to tap into a cloud-based core banking solution to launch to global markets within six months. By leveraging third party expertise in cloud-first deployments and digital banking knowhow in the region, ORO Bank also expects to actively monitor and offset its carbon footprint — it will donate 1% of profits to initiatives that promote sustainability.
According to Siobhan Byron, Executive Vice President, Universal Banking, Finastra, ORO’s technology partner: “This is a bank that thrives in bringing innovators and entrepreneurs around the world together to collaborate. It is a pleasure to have helped kick start ORO Bank’s journey… to enable the bank to focus on its inspiring vision and customer service, while we take care of the core banking operations.”
