Banks in Asia Pacific (APAC) have spent $100 billion in technology but the in-house platforms they invested in have not yielded the desired Return on Investments (ROI), according to a 2023 International Data Corp. (IDC) and Backbase Infobrief to be unveiled this month.

Many banks in APAC tend to in-source and build their platform architecture in-house, especially when it comes to digital banking architecture, according to the Infobrief.

Yet these banks are not sure whether their digital transformation has been effective and yielded the ROI, growth, retention, and preference they envisioned.

“One of the thorniest questions for banking transformation leaders is whether to build or buy the digital banking platforms they need," Ashish Kakar, Research Director of IDC Financial Insights stated Friday, June 16.

"This Infobrief creates clarity to this dilemma and creates structure to the decision-making process for APAC banks,” he noted.

Backbase, the global leader in Engagement Banking, along with IDC, a global technology market intelligence leader are launching the Infobrief, “Accelerating Customer-Centric Transformation by Balancing Build and Buy - A Collaborative Approach toward Sustainable Digital Banking Architecture”.

The full details of the Infobrief showing where digital acceleration and transformation efforts have gone wrong will be unveiled at the IDC and Backbase Leadership Banking Insights Forum 2023 to be held this June 22, at Discovery Primea, Makati.

The Manila forum will feature keynotes and closed-door panel discussions with industry experts as well as strategies, learnings, frameworks, and actionable insights pivoting digital banking.

The event is structured around business and technology topics, what banks are innovating on and what they are procuring.

So far, “Backbase has helped over 150 banks in Asia and the world to modernize digital customer engagement by re-architecting banking around their customers. We have seen banks leverage on different platform approaches – build, buy, or adopt and build, to improve digital customer experience, and we’ve seen what worked and what didn’t,” said Riddhi Dutta, Regional Vice President, Asia, Backbase.

In APAC, Backbase customers include ABBANK, BDO Unibank, Bank of the Philippine Islands, EastWest Bank, HDFC, IDFC First, JudoBank, Techcombank, TPBank, and UBank.

Backbase is a privately funded fintech company, founded in 2003 in Amsterdam, with regional offices in Singapore, Atlanta and operations in Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Latin America, and the UK.