Banks Recast Core Modernisation as Strategic Overhaul

Regions Bank is modernising its core banking infrastructure to support digital services, operational efficiency and long-term growth. Paul Weiss, the bank’s transformation chief, said institutions should avoid treating core modernisation as a standardised exercise. Banks must first define their most important business and technology needs, then build KPIs that naturally measure outcomes such as resilience, execution and customer impact.

Speaking at a recent Temenos community forum, Weiss outlined Regions Bank’s approach and stressed that each institution needs a modernisation path tailored to its existing architecture, strategic priorities and resources. He also urged banks to map their full systems environment early, identify dependencies and potential constraints, and incorporate those findings into project timelines before implementation begins, reducing the risk of delays and misaligned performance measures.

Core banking systems underpin deposits, payments and account processing, making modernization a critical test of banks’ ability to improve service, resilience and customer trust. HBL’s approach frames transformation as more than a technology replacement. It argues that banks must first define the problem they intend to solve, while treating customer and employee experiences as central measures of whether a digital overhaul succeeds.

HBL Chief Technology Officer Muhammad Faisal Anwar told a Temenos forum that banks should view transactions as reflections of customers’ lives and begin core-system modernization with a clearly stated problem. He also linked better customer service to higher employee satisfaction, placing empathy at the center of operational change. The report provided no investment amount, implementation milestones or exact date for the forum, leaving the scale and timetable of HBL’s modernization program unspecified.

Financial institutions are under pressure to replace aging core systems while improving resilience, productivity and access to digital skills. Finextra says adding artificial intelligence to legacy technology stacks often fails to deliver the expected gains. Banks seeking broader benefits must instead embed AI into front-office, operations and human-resources workflows, with chief human resources, operating and information officers coordinating data governance, controls and workforce reskilling.

Finextra and Workday will hold a one-hour online webinar on July 30, 2026, at 3 p.m. British Summer Time, with 128 people registered as of July 29. Speakers from Workday and PwC will examine how banks can redesign HR and back-office processes, close AI skills gaps and build auditable controls acceptable to regulators and employees. Organizers disclosed no investment amount or financial metrics from specific bank deployments.

Bank of Maldives, founded in 1982, is the country’s largest bank by assets and branch presence, serving more than 390,000 customers through branches, self-service centers, ATMs and digital channels. Modernizing its core infrastructure is significant because the system underpins product development, transaction processing and customer service across the archipelago, including both conventional and Islamic banking products.

Finastra said on July 21, 2026, that BML had selected its next-generation Essence platform as the foundation of the bank’s long-term digital transformation. The implementation is expected to speed the launch of products and services while streamlining operations through greater automation and straight-through processing. The companies did not disclose the contract value, implementation cost or target date for completing the migration.