SINGAPORE, 17 July 2025 – IDC Asia/Pacific proudly announces the winners of the 2025 Financial Insights Innovation Awards (FIIA), recognizing outstanding achievements by financial institutions that are shaping the future of banking, insurance, and capital markets through bold, technology-driven transformation.
This year’s FIIA winners reflect how Asia’s financial institutions are responding to rapid economic growth with digital acceleration. In 2024, Asia accounted for 63% of global GDP growth, and ASEAN markets are projected to grow nearly three times faster than advanced economies in 2025. To stay competitive, institutions are significantly increasing investments in artificial intelligence, automation, and cloud platforms. Digital transformation spending by Asia Pacific banks reached US$30.4 billion last year, and IDC expects this to grow to US$48.6 billion by 2027, led by software, data, and analytics initiatives.
Presented at the Asian Financial Services Congress (AFSC) in Singapore, the FIIA awards celebrate organizations that have demonstrated leadership in areas such as GenAI deployment, resilient digital infrastructure, customer engagement, and sustainable finance. AFSC itself has become a cornerstone event for the regional industry, drawing over 3,000 BFSI attendees from 10+ APAC countries, and supported by a 20+ year track record of insight-led convening.
“Financial services in Asia are navigating geopolitical shifts, skills shortages, and increasing expectations for innovative products and services,” said Dr. Ashish Kakar, research director, IDC Asia/Pacific. “This year’s FIIA winners show that responsible innovation, paired with resilience, is key to scaling transformation in a high-growth, high-risk world.”
2025 FIIA Winning Projects
Most Innovative Bank | Blue Ocean Payment Innovation Program by CTBC Bank (Taiwan)
Rather than relying on price-driven strategies, CTBC is focused on creating a Blue Ocean by offering differentiated solutions that tap into new market niches. One of the key pillars of this strategy is expanding cross-border e-commerce transactions, enabling consumers to engage in seamless, low-cost international payments. Additionally, CTBC has introduced a revolutionary micro-investment platform that allows users to manage their spare change through credit card transactions, helping young customers integrate financial planning into their everyday activities. Furthermore, CTBC is pioneering mobile payment tools that cater specifically to the growing demand for on-the-go transactions, allowing small businesses and individuals to accept payments with ease via their smartphones.
Most Innovative Bank | #UNOeasy by UNO Digital Bank (Philippines)
#UNOeasy is a groundbreaking digital lending initiative that redefines how underserved Filipinos access credit—right at the point of sale. Designed as a mobile-first, paperless, and real-time financing solution, #UNOeasy allows customers to apply for and receive loan approval in under 10 minutes, without the need for credit cards or traditional banking documentation. #UNOeasy combined AI-powered credit decisioning, offline operability, and retail integration into a lightweight, scalable platform – enabling store agents across the Philippines to offer fast, compliant loans through basic Android devices. In just six months, #UNOeasy has processed over 23,300 loan applications, disbursed PHP 134 million, and achieved a 33% market share in partner store locations—demonstrating rapid adoption, operational scalability, and real financial impact.
Most Innovative Insurer | Deploying Gen AI at Scale to Accelerate Growth by AIA Group (Hong Kong)
Building on the foundation of its Technology, Digital, and Analytics (TDA) program, AIA successfully deployed over 50 Gen AI use cases in 2024, transforming how insurance services are delivered to millions of customers across Asia. As an example, the AI-powered role-play training tool transforms agent development by simulating authentic customer interactions. The solution has upskilled over 4,400 agents, driving a 10% point improvement in assessment scores. Also, in AIA’s contact centers, AI-powered co-pilots summarize customer inquiries, reducing response times by over 50% and streamlining service. Gen AI document processing cuts review times in half, enhancing both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Leader in Intelligent Banking | Artificial Intelligent Platform by E.SUN Bank (Taiwan)
The E.SUN Artificial Intelligent Platform integrates multiple channels and key systems to deliver personalized financial services, enhancing customer experience throughout their journey. The platform integrates the most retail financial services in the industry, enabling customers to apply for multiple products without repeated input, serving over 6 million users. With the platform, the bank has been able to achieve multiple benefits. Digital channel completion in core retail exceeded 87%. Fraud attempts totaling NT$630 million were successfully prevented. Customers are able to save over 50% in application time, equating to an annual savings of 2,800 hours in review time.
Leader in Intelligent Insurance | Smart AI Verification of Elderly Voice Recordings by Taiwan Life Insurance Co., Ltd (Taiwan)
Using digital technology and AI smart learning, Taiwan Life Insurance launched Smart AI Verification of Elderly Voice Recordings – the first in the industry – to provide the best service experience and process for elderly policyholders, ensure fair treatment, and take a customer-centric approach. The system increases the success rate of first-time recordings, minimizing the need to inconvenience customers with re-recordings. Furthermore, sections that fail quality inspection are marked, improving the accuracy and efficiency of review officers. To date, the system has been able to: reduce re-recording rate from 40% to 10%; reduce manual review error rate from 5% to 1%; and improve manual review efficiency by 30%.
Leader in Customer Engagement | BNI Direct Cash Management by PT Bank Negara Indonesia (Persero) Tbk (Indonesia)
BNIdirect is BNI’s flagship digital cash management solution designed to transform the way corporates and SMEs manage their financial operations. Built with a future-forward architecture and API-first approach, BNIdirect integrates a full suite of treasury functions—from real-time payments, liquidity management, mass payroll, tax payments, to trade finance—within a single omnichannel platform accessible via web, mobile, and API. BNIdirect introduced seamless integration for notional pooling and cross-currency liquidity optimization, enabling clients to gain real-time control over cash flow with greater accuracy and agility. Furthermore, BNIdirect’s dynamic roadmap focuses on automating manual tasks, standardizing digital processes, and delivering 24/7 access to mission-critical financial data.
Leader in Infrastructure Modernization | Pioneering Sustainable Cooling: Liquid Cooling Transformation by DBS Bank (Singapore)
DBS has transformed its development data center by retrofitting an existing air-cooled hall with Singapore’s first brand-agnostic liquid cooling system. Unlike traditional systems that rely on brand-specific equipment, this liquid cooling setup works across multiple server types—making it more scalable and future-ready. It also shifts over 70% of the cooling load away from power-hungry air systems to liquid cooling, cutting energy use without compromising performance. A standout feature is the use of return chilled water—essentially recycling waste ‘cold energy’—to cool servers without drawing extra power from chillers. Additionally, instead of building something new, DBS upgraded what was already in place, reducing carbon impact and costs. As a result rack power density more than doubled, going from 10kW to 22kW, allowing more computing power in the same space.
Leader in Infrastructure Modernization | Project Sangam – SDWAN for ABC branches by Aditya Birla Capital (India)
Each Line of Business (LOB) within Aditya Birla Capital previously operated with separate WAN and LAN connectivity, resulting in redundant bandwidth costs and increased network management complexity. To address these inefficiencies, an SD-WAN solution was selected to reduce expenses and improve operational efficiency across all LOBs. The implementation emphasized information security, network speed, agility, and deployment time. The new solution aims to replace the existing MPLS and broadband links with ILL links connected over a secure SD-WAN network.
Leader in Resiliency | Responsible GenAI at Scale by DBS Bank (Singapore)
To keep up with the rapid development of GenAI, in 2024, we deployed a Responsible GenAI at Scale program, extending the foundations of our Responsible Data Use (RDU) framework. This approach ensures that our use of data and AI is lawful, ethical, and fair and helps sustain confidence and trust in our AI model outputs. At the moment, every AI use case which progresses from experimentation to production is reviewed against robust risk management frameworks, including a review by a cross-functional RAI taskforce.
Leader in Sustainable Finance | AI-powered Green Fintech for Sustainable Financing Business by CTBC Bank (Taiwan)
The project of “AI-powered Green Fintech for Sustainable Financing Business” integrates the tracking needs of financial institutions’ progress in achieving carbon reduction commitments with big data databases and robotic process automation (RPA) technologies. This initiative helps financial institutions to understand the sustainability strategies and status of their corporate finance clients, including carbon reduction targets and greenhouse gas emissions, and can further implement ESG engagement with companies.
The 2025 FIIA winners stand out not only for their innovation but also for how they are addressing the region’s most urgent transformation challenges. More than 60 percent of financial institutions in Asia are exploring generative AI, but only a small portion have moved from pilot projects to full production. Progress is often held back by legacy data systems, unclear AI use cases, and talent shortages, with 42 percent of organizations identifying these as major barriers. At the same time, geopolitical factors are playing a growing role in technology decisions, with one in three institutions prioritizing providers that offer regional presence, strong innovation capabilities, and a track record of reliability. These realities are shaping the next phase of digital transformation across Asia’s financial sector.
As Asia continues to lead global growth and redefine digital financial services, FIIA winners offer a clear signal of where the industry is headed: toward trusted, transparent, AI-ready ecosystems built on collaborative innovation and execution excellence.
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