Finastra today announced a new Center of Excellence (COE) at Malaysia’s MRANTI Technology Park in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur. MRANTI Park is a hub for technology innovation, commercial adoption, and scientific excellence. It is an ideal location for Finastra to expand its Asia Pacific footprint, further contribute to the local economy, and promote Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) careers in a region dedicated to innovation.

Finastra will benefit from MRANTI’s integrated infrastructure and services. It will be able to tap into local IT talent, including from nearby universities and the growing start-up technology community there. The new COE will champion Finastra’s Lending, Universal Banking, Payments and Treasury & Capital Markets software solutions across the region.

With its FusionFabric.cloud open development platform, Finastra will continue to support innovation for its financial institution customers around the world, connecting fintechs - including those in Malaysia - to its core solutions. The new space will also embrace sustainability and contribute to the circular economy, being a low carbon development that uses renewable energy, aims to recycle all waste and conserves water through rain harvesting. Moreover, Finastra brings its ESG philosophy around unlocking the potential of people, business and communities.

Simon Paris, CEO at Finastra said, “Growth in Asia Pacific is one of our company’s key strategic commitments and opening a Center of Excellence in Kuala Lumpur is an important milestone to help us achieve this goal. This site is a hub for technology innovation and MRANTI’s desire to act as a connector, incubator, and catalyst to transform ideas from early-stage ideation to impact complements our collaborative mantra to drive innovation and technology acceleration around digital trade, digital finance and acceleration to cloud, in line with Government initiatives around digitalization there. It is also a testament to our highly valued Malaysian banking and financial services customers.”

Dzuleira Abu Bakar, Chief Executive Officer of MRANTI said, “Through our recently launched MRANTI Park Master Plan, we seek to inspire the world with a bold new model that accelerates ideas to impact by combining our developmental expertise with tech infrastructure and services for the creation, development and commercialization of technology and innovation. We are excited that a leading fintech company like Finastra is joining our growing community and look forward to supporting local tech innovation to transform our nations’ technology landscape.” 

The move is supported by Finastra’s investor, Vista Equity Partners, a leading global investment firm focused on enterprise software that has over a dozen companies active in Malaysia. Robert F. Smith, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Vista Equity Partners said, “I’m honored by the long-standing commitment of our Malaysian investing partners and enterprise software customers, and the positive impact they’re enabling in the country. We’re delighted to grow our engagement with direct investment through this Finastra Center of Excellence in partnership with MRANTI, and are excited about further developing local IT talent and increasing opportunities for even more Malaysians.”