UnionBank teams up with Huawei to build APAC’s first smart campus in the Philippines

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The Union Bank of the Philippines has tapped telecommunications equipment company Huawei Technologies to be its leading partner in powering its smart campus.

Dubbed the UnionBank Innovation Campus (UBIC), UnionBank aims to become the “first smart campus for a financial institution in the Asia-Pacific region,” reports Business World. Huawei Technologies will provide the necessary technological support for the campus that will serve as a breeding ground for new talents in the fintech industry.

Stewart Roa, head of UnionBank’s Cybersecurity Team, said the campus would use the Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to enhance student security and productivity in the learning facility. Roa makes the ambitious claim that the state-of-the-art infrastructure provides a peek into the future of “intelligent digital technologies.”

Alex Luan Mingming, President of Huawei’s Philippines Enterprise Business Department, said, “Together, we aim to design and launch an AI (artificial intelligence)-driven and fully connected 5G SD campus that can provide smarter, greener, and sustainable workspaces for campus employees.”

Amid the buzz of the smart campus, the bank seized the moment to launch “The Future of Banking is with U,” a three-day festival to highlight the innovative strides the bank has made in the metaverse and with AI tech.

UnionBank and Huawei have been making inroads into Web3

UnionBank revealed in August that it would become the first Philippine bank to offer digital asset trading services in the country via its mobile app. The bank said it would be pivoting toward blockchain to satisfy its customers’ yearning needs and ensure its future survival in a rapidly changing world.

The bank has also dabbled with digital currency ATMs, the metaverse, and even raised $208 million through a blockchain-backed bond offer. The bank gained a license from Bango Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to operate as a digital bank in 2021, and since then, it has been pushing the frontiers of virtual currency adoption in the country.

Huawei has scored its own fair share of blockchain partnerships in the industry, notably helping Beijing’s government use the technology to track and manage citizens’ data. The technology firm earned a place in China’s Blockchain Committee and planned to build a hardware wallet for the digital yuan in its Mate 40 line of devices.

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