Finding the best solutions to attract new customers
Canada’s BlueShore Financial has run a Temenos digital core platform since November 2009. In early 2018, BlueShore started to undergo an upgrade, jumping from release 9 to release 17. One of the benefits of this upgrade is being able to take full advantage of Temenos MarketPlace to help create value by delivering new and better products and services faster while keeping costs down.
Like banks everywhere, BlueShore is looking to attract new customers in a competitive market, keep existing customer satisfaction and loyalty, meet evolving regulatory demands and maintain margins. It knows technology will help, but equally it knows that finding the right technology, testing it, configuring it and connecting it to its existing systems demands massive investment in terms of time and money. MarketPlace delivers the best tried-and-tested back- and front-office solutions from around the world, all of which have been pre-configured to easily connect to Temenos core technology.
Levels the playing field
“We’re a mid-sized regional player with limited resources, but working with MarketPlace turns us into a global player in terms of leveraging technology,” says Fred Cook, chief information officer, BlueShore Financial.
The Vancouver-based financial institution has more than $5.2 billion (CAD) assets under administration, serving 40,000 customers and 340 staff.
“Big banks have armies of developers working on modern banking solutions. There’s no way we would have that kind of investment available to us, but we still need these solutions,” he says. “MarketPlace gives us access to the best global fintechs and other third-party providers, which allows us to compete head-on with the big banks. It’s a huge competitive advantage for us and helps level the playing field.”
Up to 20 times faster than in-house
Cook believes that choosing and implementing a solution from MarketPlace is between 10 and 20 times faster than developing one in-house or selecting a fintech independently.
“Just finding a fintech you might want to consider working with takes months, then you have to qualify it, go through legal and the rest. And then you need to factor in the staff you need to do this; staff that I can deploy elsewhere because I use MarketPlace,” he says. “This way, I’m saving time, money and people.”
Heavy lifting
But there’s more. Temenos believes that its customers should have a choice wherever possible, so there are multiple solutions for payments, for example, and security. This means a bank is more likely to find something that fits well with its strategy and culture.
Furthermore, not only has the solution been assessed to make sure it does what it says it will do, but Temenos has also done due diligence on the provider. So when a bank chooses a MarketPlace solution, it need not worry about the longevity of the support – it will not back a loser.
Says Cook: “Temenos has done all the heavy lifting – the selection, testing, development, connectivity. Doing that would be very resource intensive for us.”
Brand development
It is also important to Cook that MarketPlace providers allow their products to be white labelled, which means BlueShore can add new customer-facing products and services under its own brand. “This is key for us because we want to develop a brand experience,” explains Cook.
Cook understands that just as it makes sense for BlueShore to concentrate its resources on doing what it does best – banking – so it makes sense for Temenos to concentrate on what it does best – core banking software. What has impressed Cook is that Temenos has found a way to offer its customers the best of the rest of the technology picture. In MarketPlace, Temenos is curating the very best global fintech solutions to help banks deliver what are often niche but highly desirable modern products and services.
“Vendors have to leave lots of value off the table – they can’t develop it all. Even Temenos. But MarketPlace brings in all that value. I’m really pleased to know that our upgrade allows us to take full advantage of that,” he says.