At a Glance

• Enable Police Bank to launch innovative digital banking services to attract younger members

• Help the bank to improve satisfaction and foster loyalty with members young and old

Increase operational efficiency and cut cost-to-serve powered by a modern, best-of-breed core platform

Police Bank serves a unique purpose in Australia. Established in 1960, the member-owned bank provides lending, savings, investment, and insurance services exclusively to law enforcement personnel and their families, and workers in the justice sector. Currently, Police Bank has around 77,000 members drawn from the ranks of the New South Wales Police, Australian Federal Police, Tasmanian Police, and the Australian Border Force.

Greg McKenna, CEO of Police Bank, comments: “We serve a demographic that faces unique pressures and challenges on a daily basis, so we aspire to make the experience of banking with us as easy and frictionless as possible. Our top priority is ensuring that we develop and deliver high-quality, competitive, and convenient banking services that help members of the police and judicial community at every stage in their lives.”

Entering a new era

In recent years, Police Bank has found itself facing a new set of challenges. Among older consumers that typically prefer traditional branch-based transactions, the bank has a well-established membership base with high levels of satisfaction. But increasingly, Police Bank was seeing demand shift among younger Australians, who are keen to interact with their bank via more flexible online and mobile services while on the move.

“Today, we are seeing a younger cohort of members joining Police Bank. Many of them are digital natives and expect their bank to provide easy-to-use mobile and internet banking as standard. They represent a huge opportunity for us, but also a challenge. We decided to rethink our processes and technologies to ensure that we addressed the expectations of this younger market segment.”

Greg McKenna, CEO at Police Bank

To appeal to new members and strengthen ties with existing account holders, Police Bank embarked on a digital transformation journey. One early success was introducing automation into front-office workflows, removing slow paper-based onboarding and enabling new members to open accounts in a reduced timeframe. However, Police Bank knew that long-term digital innovation would mean revamping its core banking systems.

“Over time, we found that our legacy core banking solutions did not offer the flexibility or scalability that we needed,” continues Greg McKenna. “To support innovation, we needed a more advanced platform that would give us really sophisticated product development tools. Ultimately, we wanted a solution that would allow us to deliver services that help to foster long-lasting connections with members.”

Enhancing the core environment

To find the right partner and core solution, Police Bank issued a request for proposals (RFP) and conducted a thorough assessment of potential providers. After analyzing various platforms and engaging with vendors, the bank decided to use Temenos core banking as its new core banking platform on the Temenos banking cloud on Microsoft Azure.

“We were impressed with the modular architecture of Temenos core banking, which we knew would make it easy for us to adapt the solution to our needs now and in future. Also, we saw that the open APIs within the platform would open the door to integration with third-party solutions. As well as the excellent technology, we were pleased with the engagement from Temenos: they really understood our unique challenges as a small bank. Temenos were not simply offering a one-size-fits-all service, and we appreciated that.”

Greg McKenna, CEO at Police Bank

Partnering for success

Although still early days in the transformation project, Police Bank has already forged a strong working relationship with Temenos. The bank is currently working with Temenos teams to plan the implementation of Temenos Core Banking on the Temenos banking cloud and the data migration from its older core system. Looking beyond the go-live, Police Bank is excited about the possibility of extending its transformation into other areas of its operations.

“We are only at the start but working with Temenos feels more like a close partnership rather than a traditional customer-vendor relationship. One thing that is really impressive about Temenos is their emphasis on continuous research and development, so we know that we will always have access to leading-edge retail banking capabilities. And when we have completed the core modernization, we know that it will be easy to add other solutions like Temenos digital banking platform.”

Greg McKenna, CEO of Police Bank

Preparing for growth

Looking ahead, Police Bank is confident that Temenos core banking will provide all the tools it needs to drive its digital transformation, helping to improve its member services and internal operations. For example, the bank believes that replacing its legacy systems with the modern, best-of-breed Temenos core platform will unlock valuable operational efficiency gains and reduce cost-to-serve.

Greg McKenna continues: “With Temenos core banking, we will be able to bring new services to the market quickly to enhance our current suite of products. Whether we want to improve our loan origination processes or roll out innovative new digital banking capabilities, we know that Temenos core banking will provide the agility to develop fast and adapt our offerings in line with shifting member expectations.”

Police Bank also believes that working with Temenos will help it to improve satisfaction and loyalty among members young and old, as Greg McKenna explains: “As we use the Temenos platform to improve our member experience, we are confident that we will see our net promoter score [NPS] rise, especially among younger, digital-native consumers. Temenos core banking will enable us to serve our long-standing members with greater efficiency while supporting the flexible digital services that appeal to younger consumers.”

“With Temenos, we have a great solution and a committed partner. As we move forward, we believe our collaboration will help us to reach our growth targets and ensure our members benefit from a first-class, convenient modern banking experience. We are on our way to strengthening our connections with our membership, and positioning Police Bank as their bank for life.”

Greg McKenna, CEO at Police Bank
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