Temenos and IBM prove scale of support for retail banking operations

GENEVA, Switzerland – 28th October  2008 – Temenos Group (SWX: TEMN), the provider of integrated core banking systems, today announced performance report findings for TEMENOS T24 (T24) R8, which prove its ability to comfortably support retail banks based on real-case scenario testing carried out with IBM. The research was conducted by the T24 Performance Management Team, a new Temenos research function that will continually evaluate and improve the performance and scalability of T24 for retail banking operations.

The testing environment, created to reflect real-world retail banking activity volumes, was made up of 15 million customers and 25 million accounts, spread across the personal and small business segments and using a wide range of products through multiple channels including branch, ATM, POS and the internet. A broad range of back office transactions were applied during testing to reflect realistic retail banking activity. The platform used, comprising three IBM Power 570 servers with POWER6 processors and a p5-595 database server with POWER5+ processors to run the Oracle database, was selected to reflect a typical, real life configuration for this type of retail bank to ensure real-world performance delivered with superior cost of ownership. This configuration was neither the maximum or most powerful that could have been applied in the test.

The scenario called for the solution to process 1,500 transactions per second (tps) during the peak period of the working day. This was created from the peak period of branch processing, plus high volume batch payments and (to reflect an unlikely worst case) peak internet usage simultaneously. The benchmark comfortably exceeded this target with the system processing in excess of 2,600 tps. Tests on a set of payments and enquiries transactions designed to demonstrate maximum throughput in performance tests of this kind, resulted in over 9,460 tps for the same hardware configuration.

The project was undertaken by a joint Temenos and IBM team, in the IBM performance testing facilities in Montpelier, France, during May 2008. The Temenos members of the team created the T24 environment, managed the application and simulated the online and batch transactions. The IBM team members undertook the configuration and tuning of the database server, application server, operating system and provided performance measurement and tooling. This is part of an ongoing programme of T24 performance testing based upon real-case situations.

Andreas Andreades, CEO, Temenos, says: “Having recently announced Bank of Shanghai’s successful implementation of T24 to support 11 million customer accounts and up to two and a half million daily transactions, these figures further confirm T24’s ability to comfortably support the high activity volumes and operational needs for most retail banks in the world. At Temenos, with the support of IBM, we have proven that we can combine the unique software architecture and package integrity of T24 with the most demanding scalability requirements of retail banks today. As such we are able to fundamentally transform the economics of running IT operations for a retail bank wishing to adopt our package approach. This is particularly relevant in the current environment with most leading banks wishing to transform their balance sheets in favour of lower cost and lower risk consumer deposits”.

Andre Loustau, CTO, Temenos, commented: “The test has proved very successful and it was particularly rewarding that these results were achieved on the standard R8 model bank release which is now in GA since April 2008.  The test also confirmed T24’s excellent ability to fully exploit the available processing power. The new T24 Performance Management Team are now analysing the results, but we already know that these exceptional figures can be easily exceeded in future releases of the system or by using more powerful hardware to linearly scale performance”.

T24 is now confirmed as a core banking system comfortably capable of servicing the needs of cross-sector banking operations ranging from small to in excess of 10 million accounts. T24 Model bank is a packaged core banking software that provides banks with unparalleled richness in functionality on an integrated, service orientated architecture with support from front to back office. T24 Model Bank includes pre-configured, industry best practices for each banking sector, enabling banks to optimise operations and processes while remaining agile, flexible and responsive to business change. Its highly automated implementation approach delivers short implementations with a rapid and measurable return on investment. Fully integrated CRM and business intelligence capabilities provide a high degree of customer intimacy and a clear and deep understanding of the enterprise including its risk and performance.

T24 incorporates modern technology including a comprehensive Service Orientated Architecture (SOA).  It’s also fully enabled for standard SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) web services, and BPEL process execution. T24 is compliant with industry leading ESBs (Enterprise Service Buses) and can be deployed on fully scalable, multi-server n-tier architecture. It provides a full front-to-back solution from electronic delivery channels such as mobile devices and internet banking right through to settlement, general ledger and other back office functions all in a fully integrated, reliable and cost effective environment. Temenos’ total commitment to open standards enables its customers to benefit from the latest advances in technology ensuring business agility, continuity, data integrity and reduced downtime delivering a significant, immediate and ongoing return on investment.

T24 is Temenos’ solution for small and medium-sized retail banks as well as banking operations in all the banking industry sectors. TEMENOS COREBANKING (TCB) is a retail banking back office engine that handles higher volumes for large-scale retail operations of well over the 10 million accounts level. Banks choosing TCB typically run legacy mainframe applications that are looking to implement a modern software architecture whilst leveraging the significant investment already made in the mainframe infrastructure and related people skills. TCB provides a core banking framework architecture which the bank can supplement with further development.

-ENDS-

About Temenos

Founded in 1993 and listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange (SWX: TEMN), Temenos Group AG is a global provider of banking software systems in the Retail, Corporate & Correspondent, Universal, Private, Islamic and Microfinance & Community banking markets. Headquartered in Geneva with 44 offices worldwide, Temenos serves over 600 customers in more than 120 countries.  

Temenos’ software products provide advanced technology and rich functionality, incorporating best practice processes that leverage Temenos’ experience in over 600 implementations around the globe.  

Temenos’ advanced and automated implementation approach, provided by its strong Client Services organisation, ensures efficient and low-risk core banking platform migrations. Temenos annually invests around 20% in R&D, significantly more than its peers, into a single fully packaged upgradeable software release, which ensures all Temenos customers benefit from modern technology and support indefinitely. For more information please visit www.temenos.com

For more information, contact:

Max Chuard
Temenos Director
Corporate Finance & IR
Member of the Executive Board
Tel: +41 (0) 22 708 1157
Email: mchuard@temenos.com

Ben Robinson
Temenos Investor Relations Manager
Tel: +44 (0) 207 290 3012
Email: brobinson@temenos.com

Petra Shuttlewood
Temenos PR Manager
Tel: +44 (0) 207 423 3751
Email: pshuttlewood@temenos.com

Evelina Amanatidou Team 660
Metia for TEMENOS
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3100 3592
 Email: evelina@metia.com