Rakuten International Commercial Bank – Internet-only Bank Project (RICB project)

Rakuten Bank and IBM Global Business Services

In 2019, the government of Taiwan issued its first internet-only banking permits, aiming to bring innovation to the financial industry and create synergistic benefits with tech-empowered services. Japan’s leading e-commerce giant, the Rakuten Group, partnered with IBM on this banking system implementation which became Taiwan’s first internet-only bank. To tackle this first-of-its-kind project and meet Rakuten’s goal, IBM leveraged an MVP approach and PMO mechanism, performing 14 system integrations in one year. With 75% of the project’s timeline falling during COVID, the PMO team responded with agility and took control of the timeline. The RICB project launched in January 2021 and leads the financial innovation trend in Taiwan.