Germany’s Akbank AG Successfully Completes First Phase of Core Banking Migration to Mambu in Partnership with Innovance [Sponsored]

Why It Matters

The migration demonstrates that regulated European banks can replace legacy cores with cloud‑native SaaS solutions, unlocking agility, lower maintenance costs, and faster product rollout, a competitive edge in a digitising market.

Key Takeaways

• Phase 1 moved Retail and Private banking to Mambu’s cloud platform
• Core+ layer handles business logic, integration, and validation
• Limit Proposal App enabled digital corporate credit approval in four months
• Migration reduces maintenance effort and improves system resilience
• Next phase will extend Mambu to Corporate Banking and complex lending

Pulse Analysis

European banks are accelerating the shift from monolithic legacy systems to cloud‑native, SaaS‑based cores as regulatory pressure and customer expectations converge. Platforms like Mambu offer an API‑first, composable architecture that can be hosted on hyperscale providers such as Microsoft Azure, delivering the scalability and security required by supervisors like BaFin. This model reduces the need for costly on‑premise hardware, shortens development cycles, and provides a flexible foundation for future digital services, positioning banks to compete with fintech challengers.

Akbank AG’s Phase 1 rollout illustrates the practical benefits of this approach. Partnering with Innovance, the bank replaced its legacy core for Retail and Private segments with Mambu, adding a bespoke Core+ layer that centralises business logic and integration patterns. The result is a unified ecosystem that spans payments, accounting, wealth‑management back‑office, and real‑time fraud detection, while allowing non‑technical staff to adjust pricing, fees, and interest rates via configuration. The rapid delivery of the Limit Proposal Application—launching a digital corporate credit approval workflow in just four months—highlights the speed gains achievable through modular, API‑driven design.

The successful migration strengthens Mambu’s foothold in the DACH region and signals broader market viability for cloud‑based core banking in tightly regulated environments. As Akbank moves into Phase 2, targeting Corporate Banking and complex lending, the bank will leverage Mambu’s modular services to integrate additional systems and support sophisticated credit products. This roadmap underscores a growing industry trend: banks that adopt agile, cloud‑first cores can respond faster to market dynamics, improve operational resilience, and deliver richer digital experiences, setting a new benchmark for legacy transformation across Europe.