One bank in the country is not just migrating to cloud computing, but is developing every employee’s aptitude for cloud-speed innovation.

While many banks in some parts of Asia have found it difficult to give up their legacy on-premises applications, attitudes are changing for the better in the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector in Vietnam.

For example, this week, the Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) announced that is embarking on a ‘Cloud First’ strategy to “transform the customer experience”.

Specifically, Techcombank will migrate the majority of its applications from on-premises infrastructure to AWS in order to make decisions in real time, understand customers better, accelerate the innovation of new products and services, and enhance customer service and online experience.

In the multi-year program, the bank will focus on establishing a cloud skills program to provide its employees with access to cloud technology to promote an environment of rapid and continuous innovation, offering new digital financial services faster while remaining highly secure and compliant.

The bank’s CEO, Jens Lottner, said that transforming his workforce with cloud skills was key to achieving Techcombank’s vision of enabling individuals, businesses, and corporations to progress and thrive sustainably, and “focus on innovating financial products and services faster to solve customer challenges and uplift communities.”

Cloud skills training

The cloud skills program by AWS is expected to upskill 700 employees and develop talent as the bank successfully migrates to the Cloud. Self-paced digital training on cloud fundamentals will also be made available to all employees. Additionally, ‘live’ classes are slated to upskill 2,000 participants over the next 24 months.

For non-technical staff, the bank will offer foundational training like the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner course, while technical training will be available for all technical staff working closer to the cloud migration.

Technical training classes will range from intermediate to advanced topics including architecting, developing, machine learning, and security. This initiative will also see the formation of a Cloud Champion network, initially led by 25 employees known as Cloud Champions, who will facilitate study groups and offer peer-to-peer coaching to further provide employees with cloud skills to encourage innovation.

In terms of talent recruitment, the bank will use leadership forums, virtual job fairs and targeted employment campaigns to broaden its reach for cloud-savvy employees.

Conor McNamara, Managing Director, AWS ASEAN, said Techcombank is harnessing the differentiated breadth, depth, operational resilience, and fine-grained security of cloud computing to innovate at pace. “In addition to the differentiated technology benefits, we are delighted to extend our collaboration to encompass culture, workforce re-skilling, continuous learning, and enablement at scale. This will equip Techcombank with a cloud fluent workforce to deliver, innovative financial services products, helping Vietnamese consumers reach their full potential.”