Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) has proven its reputation as a trailblazer in the industry anew by being the first bank in the Philippines to run workloads on Amazon Web Services Inc. Local Zones location in Manila, Philippines.

"This is a huge development in the AWS expansion in the Asian region and addresses response time issues for mission-critical applications that require low latency. This in turn allows service providers like us to deliver digital solutions to our customers much better," said Ryan Acosta, UnionBank's head for Infrastructure and Service Management.

As the Philippines' leading bank of innovation, UnionBank has been investing heavily in cloud-enabled solutions as part of its continuous efforts to serve customers better. UnionBank was the first major bank in the Philippines to be fully hosted in the cloud, completing its migration to AWS in 2022 and two weeks ahead of schedule.

The move to the cloud resulted in numerous improvements for the Bank's various day-to-day operations, including reduced IT costs, the elimination of downtime and system lags, and improved backup and disaster recovery capabilities, just to name a few, in turn providing better services to customers.

And now, with the recent launch of AWS Local Zones in the country, UnionBank further solidifies its first-mover status in the Philippine banking space while enabling more meaningful and relevant customer experiences. This is in line with the Bank's 'Tech-Up' Pilipinas advocacy that aims to empower Filipinos and contribute to nation-building through technology, innovation and co-creation.

"True to its core value of innovation, UnionBank has once again become the first mover in this space, leveraging cloud technology to bring even more value to our customers," said Dennis Omila, UnionBank's chief technology and operations officer. "We have always been proud of being a company of industry firsts, and I'm confident that with the AWS Local Zones location in Manila, we will be able to do even more."