Russian digital bank Tinkoff taps Finastra for Asian expansion

Russian neobank Tinkoff has selected Finastra and its Fusion Essence Cloud core banking solution as the firm looks to bring its digital banking services to Asia.

Fusion Essence Cloud will power Tinkoff’s Philippine subsidiary

Tinkoff, which currently serves more than 18.5 million customers, plans to open a subsidiary bank in the Philippines as part of its wider Asian expansion strategy.

Reports that the firm was seeking a banking licence in the country came to light back in August. It’s believed the bank’s offshoot in the Philippines would have an initial capital of $40 million.

George Chesakov, international expansion lead at Tinkoff, says the bank was looking for a partner that could “help us launch quickly, enable rapid growth, and help us to navigate the local requirements of a new market”, and that Finastra’s platform “meets all these needs”.

Finastra says its cloud-native Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering will allow Tinkoff to “build a system tailored to its requirements”.

Fusion Essence Cloud will be deployed out of the Microsoft Azure Southeast Asia Region (Singapore Data Center), which Finastra says will allow “for both low latency and data residency”.

The deal follows hot on the heels of Tinkoff’s acquisition of a 51% stake in Just Look, developer of Jump.Finance, a fintech that automates interactions with freelancers, including payments.

The purchase was undertaken on behalf of Tinkoff Business, the branch of Tinkoff Group that services SMEs and large businesses.