By Richard Humphreys |
Akbank, the German subsidiary of Turkey’s leading bank, Akbank TAS, has completed the first phase of migrating its core banking systems to software-as-a-service cloud banking platform Mambu. The transformation was delivered in collaboration with Innovance, Mambu’s technology partner.
Akbank, which operates under the supervision of Germany’s financial regulatory authority, BaFin, is transitioning from a legacy core system for its retail and private banking segments, with all customers and accounts in these business lines now operating on Mambu’s composable, API-first, cloud-native core banking platform.
“The industry is undergoing rapid transformation, and customers increasingly expect agility and seamless digital experiences,” said Osman Kara, vice president of core banking technologies at Akbank. “With the successful completion of phase one on Mambu, and in close collaboration with Innovance, we have modernised our core banking foundation and established a scalable architecture to support our next phase of growth.”
The new architecture is hosted on Microsoft Azure and uses Mambu’s API-first architecture to enable the bank to integrate easily with third-party partners – including payment providers, fintechs, credit bureaus, compliance services and digital channel platforms – while reducing operational complexity, lowering maintenance needs and improving operational resilience
Innovance is playing a key role in integrating the Core+ architecture with Mambu, enabling scalable product modelling, transaction validation and limit management, and standardised integration patterns.
“In this transformation, we developed the Core+ layer end-to-end to manage business logic, integrations and validations independently, while ensuring seamless interaction with Mambu’s platform,” said Mehmet Ali Özcan, managing director at Innovance Germany. “This approach allowed us to simplify system interactions and create a more adaptable and scalable foundation for future banking services.”
After moving to Mambu, Akbank was able to launch a digital corporate credit approval process in four months. The fully integrated ecosystem now includes core banking, accounting, payments, digital channels, wealth management back office, document management and enterprise financial crime detection components. The composable approach allowed Akbank to adjust parameters – such as pricing, fees and interest settings – directly through configuration rather than code, significantly reducing implementation time.
“At Innovance, we approach core banking transformation as a long-term capability shift rather than a system replacement,” said Yusuf Ürey, Innovance founder and CEO. “Together with Mambu, we have established a modern technology backbone for Akbank that enables continuous evolution, allowing the bank to respond faster to changing customer expectations and market dynamics.”
During the next phase of the project, Akbank will focus on corporate banking and lending, and integrating several new systems using Mambu’s composable service structure.