The global banking industry is currently navigating a profound and perilous paradox where an overwhelming majority of financial executives recognize that modern technology is the key to their future survival, yet a staggering number remain paralyzed by the immense risks associated with overhauling their archaic core systems. This inaction is creating a dangerous vacuum, allowing nimble fintech competitors to rapidly capture market share and redefine customer expectations. As the digital finance sector experiences explosive growth, traditional banks are left at a critical juncture, forced to find a way to innovate at the speed of a startup without compromising the foundational security and stability that underpins their very existence. A new strategic partnership aims to finally resolve this central conflict, offering a viable path for institutions to achieve both agility and strength in an increasingly competitive landscape.
The High Stakes of Digital Inaction
The urgent need for modernization is no longer a topic for future planning but an immediate and existential threat for many financial institutions. In the dynamic Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, a market projected to see its digital payment and fintech sectors expand at a compound annual growth rate of over 21% through 2028, the stakes could not be higher. While an overwhelming 93% of banking leaders in the region acknowledge that possessing the right technology platform is critical to their success, a stark disconnect exists between this awareness and tangible action. A concerning 67% of these same executives admit their organizations are falling behind on digital transformation, yet a mere 8% are actively prioritizing the monumental task of overhauling their core banking infrastructure. This widespread hesitation stems from a pervasive and legitimate fear of migration risk, a concern that troubles two-thirds of industry leaders who are wary of the catastrophic potential of a failed transition.
This institutional inertia places established banks at a severe competitive disadvantage, particularly as customer expectations are irrevocably shaped by the seamless experiences offered by modern fintech players. The proliferation of QR payments, digital wallets, and frictionless cross-border transactions has set a new standard for convenience and efficiency. Banks operating on outdated, monolithic infrastructure find themselves unable to match the pace of innovation, launch new products quickly, or integrate with burgeoning digital ecosystems. Without a fundamental shift in their technological approach, these institutions risk becoming obsolete, unable to capture the immense opportunities presented by the digital boom. To thrive, they must develop a dual capability: the agility to respond to market trends in real-time and the underlying resilience to scale new services securely and reliably to millions of customers, a challenge that has long seemed insurmountable.
A Unified Approach to Modernization
To resolve this critical industry dilemma, a strategic collaboration between Audax Financial Technology and 10x Banking has emerged, designed to synthesize front-end agility with back-end resilience into a single, cohesive offering. Audax, a Singapore-based digital banking solutions provider backed by Standard Chartered, contributes its proven expertise in rapid implementation. The company’s methodology enables financial institutions to launch new, full-featured digital banking capabilities in as little as six months, providing a crucial speed-to-market advantage. This allows banks to quickly respond to consumer demands, capitalize on emerging trends, and begin generating a return on investment far sooner than traditional, multi-year transformation projects would ever allow. This focus on swift, efficient deployment directly addresses the industry’s need for a more agile and responsive approach to innovation without requiring an immediate, high-risk overhaul of the entire legacy system.
Complementing this deployment speed is the robust and highly scalable back-end infrastructure provided by 10x Banking’s cloud-native core platform. This “meta platform” is already the trusted foundation for several tier-one global financial institutions, including Chase UK, Westpac, and Old Mutual, demonstrating its capacity to operate at the highest levels of the industry. Its performance metrics underscore a profound level of resilience and an immense capacity for scale; the platform already processes over a billion real-time transactions annually with 99.99% uptime. Furthermore, it can handle peak loads of up to 100,000 transactions per second and has proven its ability to onboard as many as 60,000 new customers in a single day. By integrating Audax’s deployment capabilities with 10x’s proven core, the partnership offers banks a clear path to innovate at pace without ever compromising on the security, stability, or exponential scalability required in the modern financial landscape.
Redefining the Economics of Transformation
The primary finding from this consolidated solution is that it presents a powerful and viable alternative to the conventional, prohibitively expensive core system replacement projects that can take years to complete and cost tens of millions of dollars. The partnership’s model drastically reduces both the financial burden and the inherent risks associated with modernization. One of the key benefits is the dramatic acceleration of time-to-market, which allows banks to launch comprehensive digital services in a fraction of the usual time, securing a competitive edge and achieving a faster return on their technology investment. This speed is crucial in a market where first-mover advantage can significantly impact customer acquisition and long-term loyalty. This approach fundamentally changes the calculus for banks that have long viewed transformation as an all-or-nothing gamble, making innovation more accessible and financially feasible.
Moreover, the joint offering enables a more strategic, incremental modernization strategy that minimizes the “big bang” migration risks that so many banking leaders fear. Institutions can launch new digital products and services on the modern platform while methodically and gradually migrating operations away from their legacy systems over time. This phased approach not only mitigates operational disruption but also helps to untangle the complex web of legacy integrations and reduce overall technical debt. The modern, API-driven architecture also unlocks access to new and lucrative business models, such as Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS), the creation of integrated digital wallets, and seamless participation in super-app ecosystems. A built-in “compliance-as-code” feature further enhances the value proposition, helping institutions navigate and stay ahead of the complex and evolving regulatory requirements across diverse global markets.
A Foundation of Proven Credibility
The strength of this partnership was built on the significant and complementary credibility of both organizations. 10x Banking brought not only its technical prowess, evidenced by its platform’s ability to handle 6 billion API calls a month and generate over 3 million statements an hour, but also a commitment to high standards of corporate responsibility. It stood as the first and only core banking platform to be B Corp-certified, reflecting its dedication to social and environmental performance. Its successful deployments with major banks, such as Westpac in the APAC region, provided a proven track record of driving rapid customer adoption and delivering tangible results at scale. This history of success offered a level of assurance to financial institutions wary of the risks associated with adopting new core technologies.
On the other side of the alliance, Audax offered deep in-market knowledge and proven expertise in navigating complex banking and regulatory environments, a capability reinforced by its heritage of support from Standard Chartered. The company’s proficiency was recently highlighted by its appointment by Maybank Islamic, a leading ASEAN financial institution, to spearhead the digital transformation of its Shariah-compliant services. Audax had also successfully delivered digital banking solutions integrated within large-scale ecosystem platforms serving over 150 million users. As 10x Banking CEO Antony Jenkins summarized, the partnership demonstrated that banks no longer needed to choose between speed and resilience. This sentiment was echoed by Audax CEO Kelvin Tan, who noted that the new model made advanced digital banking projects feasible not just for major financial hubs but also for underserved markets, ultimately offering a transformative blueprint for the entire industry.
