KIB selected Temenos digital banking and Temenos core banking to replace its legacy IT systems and deploy a single, cloud-native, cloud-agnostic digital banking platform to underpin its banking operations. Temenos will provide KIB with a single, packaged and extensible banking platform to digitalize its end-to-end operations. Temenos’ award-winning Islamic Banking solution will support the delivery of innovative digital products that are compliant for KIB’s Islamic retail and corporate customers.
Established in 2010, KIB’s aim is to make financial services easily accessible across Yemen to support socio-economic development and raise the national standard of living. The bank plays an essential role in supporting the livelihoods of local businesses and individuals by providing access to vital financial products and services. By driving significant cost efficiencies, Temenos’ technology will enable KIB to offer more accessible and lower-cost financial services to the Yemeni population and promote financial inclusion.
Temenos differentiated itself from other vendors in its unique ability to combine core Islamic values with modern digital banking services. Temenos’ cloud-native technology will transform our operations by driving incredible efficiency gains, but most importantly, by helping to improve the standard of living for individuals and the prospects for businesses in Yemen.”
As part of its digital transformation program, Bank of Queensland unveiled a technology strategy that will drive differentiated customer experiences and sustainable growth through its subsidiary, Virgin Mobile Australia.
Virgin Group Founder, Sir Richard Branson comments: “Virgin Money Australia has an ambition to challenge the status quo in the financial services industry. The new Virgin Money Australia digital bank is the antithesis of a traditional bank: it embraces simplicity and rejects the notion of financial complexity. At the core of the Virgin DNA is a challenger spirit, which brings competition to every industry we enter. I am so proud of the Virgin Money Australia team for living and breathing our DNA when designing and building the new digital bank, and keeping the customer at the heart of their decision-making.”
The new Digital Bank will deliver a truly differentiated and exciting Virgin experience. Importantly, Virgin Money Australia is uniquely positioned to build on our existing relationships with more than 200,000loyal customers and a home loan portfolio that has quickly grown to more than $3 billion to effectively compete in the Australian market with challenger and incumbent banks alike.”
Greg Boyle, Group Executive, Retail Banking, at BOQ Group
Virgin Money Australia leverages Temenos’ front-to-back offering with Temenos core banking, the next generation in core banking and Temenos digital banking, the leading omnichannel digital banking product, on the Temenos Banking Cloud. Accessing the solution through a subscription model, Virgin Money Australia will be able to scale usage based on its business growth.
The new Digital Bank has gone live on Temenos modern cloud-based core banking platform, which provides a frictionless and fully integrated digital experience, bringing together credit cards, transaction and savings accounts, plus a loyalty program in a single, native mobile app. Through the modern app, consumers can open an account in minutes.
Nuestra Caja launched more than two decades ago with a crystal-clear goal: to deliver financial services to low-income citizens who struggle to access the resources needed to achieve economic security. In short, the cooperative (caja) aims to drive financial inclusion within Mexico and to improve the lives of its customers and their families.
In Mexico, cajas populares play a similar role to member-owned financial cooperative (caja) societies in the United States and Europe. Despite successful initiatives run by the Bank of Mexico, research from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reveals there are still millions of people in Mexico without regular access to basic financial services. This is especially true for female citizens and those living in the south-eastern states, which is precisely where Nuestra Caja operates.
Moises Cruz Matias, President of the Board of Directors at Nuestra Caja, explains: “To succeed, we need to reach those sections of society that have been overlooked and underserved by the major banks. That means offering a service proposition that appeals to the likes of small traders, seasonal workers in rural areas, and female citizens, who favor flexible credit agreements and repayment terms.”
Making a fresh start
For Nuestra Caja, the priority is to offer high-quality, user-friendly credit, lending, savings and investment products that align with the aspirations of their target customers. The inevitable challenge is how to marry this focus on innovation with cost-efficiency to ensure that the cooperative (caja) stays competitive commercially.
As it expanded its customer base, Nuestra Caja encountered a familiar problem for financial institutions. The core systems that support its corporate and branch operations were becoming increasingly difficult to scale, manage and maintain. Nuestra Caja decided the time was right to make a clean break and implement a more advanced core platform.
“We realized that continuing with our aging systems would make it harder and harder to achieve our goals,” says Moises Cruz Matias. “We struggled to add new functionality to help us extend our offering, increase efficiency, and create a more compelling in-branch experience. To continue our growth, we looked to modernize using the latest technology.”
Pinpointing the right partner
Nuestra Caja engaged a specialist IT consultancy to provide guidance on the best core solutions available and a series of assessment benchmarks. The cooperative (caja)’s key criteria for the new solution included first-rate reliability and scalability, a clear upgrade plan to ensure access to the latest core functionality, and the availability of expert technical support to assist its development teams. Having analyzed the market, Nuestra Caja identified a standout candidate to replace its distributed legacy systems: Temenos Transact (R22). The cooperative (caja) implemented the Temenos platform across its network of 50 branches and at its corporate offices—providing capabilities for streamlined management of lending activities, greater control of credit risk, flexible product design, and standardized branch teller operations. And for the first time, the cooperative (caja) can now monitor credit risk and view account balances in real time.
Reaping the benefits
Since the initial go-live, Nuestra Caja has seen exceptional results. Take product development, for example. Previously, the cooperative (caja)’s outdated legacy applications hampered development efforts and time to market for new services. The Temenos platform simplified and accelerated this process, providing a set of flexible components that Nuestra Caja uses to create unique lending and savings products tailored to appeal to target customer groups.
“Today, we can bring a new product to market within one week, which represents a huge improvement. With Temenos Transact, we can continually evolve and refine our services, ensuring that we offer the most compelling proposition to potential customers. In fact, since we implemented the Temenos platform, we have doubled our overall customer base and seen our lending business expand by 30 percent, establishing us as a key service provider in the region.”
Moises Cruz Matias, President of the Board of Directors at Nuestra Caja
Beyond these high-level business benefits, Nuestra Caja can also rest assured that it has a robust core platform in place that will keep its operations running round-the-clock without the risk of disruption. What’s more, the Temenos solution provides a clear upgrade path, ensuring the cooperative (caja) can continue to enhance the capabilities of the core platform. And by standardizing operations on a single, proven platform, Nuestra Caja eliminated the cost and effort of maintaining multiple legacy systems.
Fostering collaboration and knowledge transfer
Working with Temenos also yields another valuable outcome for Nuestra Caja: an annual invite to the Temenos Community Forum. The cooperative (caja) takes advantage of this opportunity to meet with leading players from the financial services world, explore the latest new software functionality and best practices, and discover how other clients are making the most of their investments in Temenos technologies.
Moises Cruz Matias continues: “As a relatively small player in the financial services industry, the chance to gain insights from the global leaders is really valuable to our ongoing growth strategy. Add to this that our internal development teams can access first-rate technical assistance and thought leadership from Temenos experts at any time to support our own innovation projects.”
As it stands today, Nuestra Caja has built a base of more than 101,000 customers, 93 percent of which are women.
“Our partnership with Temenos has been integral to our success in bringing financial services to more and more low-income Mexicans. We would recommend Temenos to any other cooperative (caja) or bank considering how to transform their core systems today. You can feel confident in the expertise of their consultants and the quality of their solutions—you will not regret your decision.”
Moises Cruz Matias, President of the Board of Directors at Nuestra Caja
● 80% target of transactions conducted outside the branch office is already close to being achieved
● Regular customer feedback and suggestions are met with continuous updates and innovations
● Rapid adoption of its digital banking app, coupled with high levels of satisfaction
When Morocco’s CFG Bank obtained its commercial license in 2012, freeing it to evolve from an investment bank into a retail commercial bank, the transition didn’t just accelerate CFG Bank’s digital transformation; it spurred the bank to push the envelope. “In order to succeed, we had to be unique,” said Driss Benchafai, General Manager and one of the bank’s three co-CEOs. “We couldn’t do or offer the same thing, otherwise we weren’t going to have any clients.”
CFG Bank’s leaders knew that many Moroccan consumers wanted more of the digital banking experience and capabilities that have become prevalent around the world. In an attempt to satisfy these “demanding” clients, CFG Bank has adopted a technology-centric three-pillar strategy built on simplicity, transparency, and sustainable customer relationships. But CFG Bank couldn’t make this happen without a mobile technology platform that could help it excel on the digital front.
CFG Bank’s search led the bank to Kony, now part of Temenos, and CIO Zouhair Boulmane recalls that it was immediately clear that CFG Bank had found a platform with all the qualities it was looking for, beginning with an open architecture. The platform they chose is now part of Temenos digital banking. “We didn’t want to run the risk of choosing a platform that might restrict us, and we wanted to be able to develop something different every day,” he said.
Giving Customers What They Want
Less than a year later, CFG Bank launched a pilot app designed to offer its “demanding” customers an array of autonomous capabilities they desired. Customers can use the app to conduct typical banking transactions, activate or deactivate a credit card, or instantly modify credit card limits. More recently, CFG Bank added a personal financial management tool designed to help customers budget their spending more effectively. This all-in approach to its digital banking app has enabled CFG Bank to effectively retrain its customers to come into the branch only when making big financial decisions.
The objective is to have our clients conduct 80 percent of their transactions outside of the branch office.”
Driss Benchafai, General Manager at CFG Bank
That objective has matched up well with Moroccans’ clear desire for autonomy. CFG Bank has seen brisk adoption of its digital banking app, coupled with high levels of satisfaction, a year after the app’s introduction. The bank has further stoked that adoption by ensuring that when a new client comes into a branch to open an account, he or she doesn’t leave without downloading the app. “We cannot imagine one of our clients not using our digital banking app today,” said Benchafai. “It would be like saying that a client doesn’t have a debit card.”
Work in Progress
The initial success of the app certainly hasn’t caused CFG Bank to rest on its laurels; in fact, quite the opposite. Utilizing the Temenos digital banking Retail Banking app has opened CFG Bank to a new level of flexibility and a whole world of ideas as the bank’s leaders often look to what other clients around the globe are doing to get the most out of the technology. CFG Bank also gets plenty of motivation from its customers, whose eagerness to do new things with the app pushes the bank to constantly innovate.
Clients call their account managers to ask about the app—what’s new, what new functionalities are being added, Being responsive allows us to deliver quickly and to be in continuous improvement.”
Driss Benchafai, General Manager at CFG Bank
With its mobile channel firmly established, CFG Bank is looking to a future in which additional cutting-edge technologies add even more value to the customer experience. For example, Moulhim Aouad, Retail Executive Director, prepares for artificial intelligence to be paired with data analytics and consumer behavior analysis. “The goal is not to robotize the customer experience, but rather to be able to predict and assist in decision-making for both the client and bank,” said Aouad.
Just the Beginning
For now, CFG Bank is confident that it has put itself on the cutting edge of what mobile banking customers expect. Make no mistake, those expectations are higher than ever, and CFG Bank is fortunate to have leaders who understand just how important digital innovation is to the bank’s ongoing success, as well as an app that enables them to capitalize on that understanding.
Going digital is no longer an option; it is a non-negotiable requirement for today’s client, I think we are only at the beginning of the adventure. Digital has a big future ahead of it.”
• Launched a separate digital-only arm: Saven Finance, to offer highly competitive interest rates and more savings to its members
• 5 minutes to activate new customers
• Fully automated onboarding journeys
Consumer expectations around banking services are rising, and customers are increasingly seeking out providers that can offer 24/7 access to products on the digital channel. To attract new customers and retain existing account holders, it is more important than ever for financial services organizations to offer high-quality online and mobile banking experiences.
Since it was founded in 1939, FirstOntario Credit Union has continued to enhance and extend its range of banking services to grow its client base, which today stands at 126,000 people across the province of Ontario, Canada. To inspire a new generation of customers to engage with its services, FirstOntario Credit Union set out to create its first digital-only channel.
Furthermore, the credit union also recently decided to launch a separate digital-only arm entitled Saven Finance. The new service would offer online and mobile access to unique high-interest savings accounts and guaranteed investment certificates (GIC) with exceptionally competitive rates to 13.6 million Ontarian citizens.
Launching Saven allows us to have a greater reach to new digitally-focused members with a community-centric mission that shifts the perspective of what it means to be a financial institution. We’ve designed our digital brand to resonate with people who want anywhere / anytime banking. Our vision is to bring a no-nonsense, digital savings experience to those who want to achieve their financial goals through smart saving. To do that we needed to make our online platform easy to use, and enable our members to benefit from our competitive rates.”
Lloyd Smith, CEO at FirstOntario Credit Union
Turning Vision into Reality
After evaluating its back-office systems and processes, FirstOntario Credit Union realized that its core banking system would be unable to deliver the performance, scalability, and flexibility necessary to support the new digital services.
“Our goal is to shape seamless digital experiences, and without the foundation of a future-ready core banking platform, we knew that we couldn’t deliver our target customer journeys,” continues Michael Walsh. “To solve that challenge, we looked for new technology.”
Targeting a Future-Ready Banking Platform
To prepare itself for digital transformation, FirstOntario Credit Union chose Temenos core banking: a cloud-native, API-first core banking system.
As well as delivering on the foundational capabilities of security, performance and scalability, we wanted a core banking platform that would empower us to rapidly develop, test and deploy new services—and Temenos core banking delivered.”
Michael Walsh, Senior Vice president of Information technology at FirstOntario Credit Union
Working together with a team from Temenos, FirstOntario Credit Union deployed Temenos and migrated its core banking services to the new platform.
After two years of stable operations on Temenos core banking, FirstOntario Credit Union was ready to take the next leap forward with the development of its digital channel. As well as choosing a platform to deliver online and mobile banking services, the organization wanted solutions that would automate important journeys such as account opening, enabling it to offer real-time services outside of normal business hours.
To drive its new digital experience, FirstOntario Credit Union chose Temenos digital banking. Michael Walsh comments: “Our positive experience with Temenos core banking made it an easy choice to work with Temenos again for the next phase of our transformation strategy. In addition to providing the technical capabilities we need, the partnership gives us access to Temenos MarketPlace—a curated platform that connects us with FinTech innovations from around the world.”
FirstOntario Credit Union worked closely with Temenos to develop its new digital offerings.
To support the fully digital Saven Financial brand, FirstOntario Credit Union again deployed Temenos core banking and Temenos digital banking. The combination of core banking and omnichannel delivery capabilities provided the end-to-end platform needed to launch the new brand and will enable the swift roll-out of new products and services.
Launching innovative services
FirstOntario Credit Union surged ahead with the development of its digital banking services. Powered by the Temenos platform and a range of FinTech solutions, the organization tested the first prototype of its online and mobile platforms.
One of the biggest benefits we see in working with Temenos is the many FinTech partners already positioned to integrate well with their banking platform. In many cases, Temenos already had the APIs we needed to integrate with strategic partners. When they didn’t, Temenos brought in the resources we needed to facilitate the integration.”
Michael Walsh, Senior Vice president of Information technology at FirstOntario Credit Union
With the new digital platform, FirstOntario Credit Union is expected to deliver fully automated onboarding journeys for new customers, helping it to inspire a new generation of consumers to become members.
“Ultimately, we aim to embrace a digital-first strategy and the work we’re doing with Temenos today is an important step toward that goal,” says Michael Walsh. “In the future, there will be no need for our customers to wait for one of our employees to tell them that their new account has been approved. Everything will be automated from start to finish, and within five minutes customers will be able to access their account online. Initially, we will be delivering these services on our digital-only channel, but we can already see great potential in extending the capabilities to our existing customers.”
With Saven Financial, FirstOntario Credit Union is now offering a straightforward, easy-to-use digital-only service with attractive rates and a frictionless customer experience. The launch of Saven will increase the credit union’s reach with consumers, especially among younger digital-native Ontarians looking for flexible anytime, anywhere financial services. In line with FirstOntario Credit Union’s overall strategy, much of Saven Financial’s profits will be reinvested back into local community initiatives.
Getting a progress report from the experts
The organization is now working with expert consultants from Temenos to help ensure that the new journeys meet its customers’ high expectations. The team ran an in-depth assessment of the proposed online account opening solution and provided insights into how the organization’s approach compared to others in the industry
Michael Walsh continues: “Temenos assessment placed us in the top quadrant for our space, which gave us the reassurance that our development efforts were moving in the right direction. Before we go live with the finished product, we plan to invite Temenos back to evaluate our progress.”
Choosing Temenos core banking is a decision that defines the next decade or more.”
Tom Bijvoet, Chief Administration Officer at FirstOntario Credit Union
FirstOntario Credit Union is confident that the new services will strengthen its leading position in the province.
“The credit union system is built on cooperation, and we regularly meet with our peers to discuss challenges and find solutions,” adds Michael Walsh. “We see that Temenos shares that philosophy, and from day one, they’ve been fully engaged with our business and committed to our success. The amount of investment that Temenos puts into research and development really shines through in the quality of their offering. We have no hesitation in recommending Temenos as a partner and as a world-class banking solution.”
Formed in 2018, Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG) aims to foster financial inclusion and deliver simple, satisfying customer experiences. To realize its ambitious growth plans, the bank decided to implement Temenos core banking, migrating its previous disparate core systems onto a single instance of the cloud-native platform. With the Temenos solution in place, CBG has the capabilities it needs to create innovative new offerings for its one million customers and launch easy-to-access digital services that will boost accessibility to financial services in Ghana. The advanced core functionality will also enable the bank to streamline internal processes, reduce operating costs, and scale seamlessly to support its growth plans.
Together with Temenos we can deliver on our vision to become the bank of choice in Ghana, providing a simple, secure and differentiated banking experience to our customers.”
Daniel Addo, Chief Executive Officer at Consolidated Bank Ghana
Openbank, the digital online bank of the Santander Group, has more than 1 million customers worldwide and is considered Europe’s largest digital bank. To drive domestic and international expansion and to support the group’s digital strategy, Openbank chose Temenos core banking, the next generation in core banking, to help power its operations for retail and SME banking across its global operations. Temenos Wealth Front Office was added and integrated with Temenos core banking to enhance the overall digital customer experience. By adopting Temenos’ packaged and extensible software Openbank will be able to gain a deeper understanding of their customers’ needs and be fastest to market with new personalized products and services at a very low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Temenos software allows the bank to launch products in cycles that are probably 10x faster than before. We are working together with Temenos as partners to transform our business digitally from bottom up.
● Saving a lot of time and heartburn by bringing lots of efficiency to its calling campaigns
● Ability to have instant access to all of its client’s accounts
Johnson Bank’s collection platforms and service of record did not communicate with each other. Because the out-of-the-box solution the bank was using could not be customized, Johnson’s team had to track loss mitigation, foreclosure, and bankruptcy using spreadsheets. With no real-time refresh option, payments would not appear in the collections environment, and the team had to complete eight steps before they could make a phone call. With $4.7 billion in assets, Johnson needed a better solution to serve its customers. Several factors that led to Johnson selecting Temenos were the configurability of the platform, the workflow capabilities, and the number of satisfied Temenos customers who were already using the product. “Many other software vendors were just getting into the workflow process or they just did foreclosure and bankruptcy but not collections,” says Louis Burg, VP of the Consumer Assets Group and Mortgage Quality Assurance at Johnson Bank. “Nobody did everything well.”
The thing that drew us to Temenos was that it was, at its heart, a core collections system, which we desperately needed. And we could configure different workflows to fit our bank’s existing process.”
Louis Burg, VP Consumer Special Assets Group and Mortgage Quality Assurance at Johnson Bank
Creating High-Impact Efficiency
Johnson used the Temenos Collection module to streamline its processes. “Six clicks and it’s to the printer,” says Christine Pfeiffer, who focuses on loss mitigation in Johnson’s Consumer Special Assets Group. “The workflows take my team through the process. We’ve built it so it’s procedural-based. No more need for checklists and no more second-guessing yourself.”
Burg says Johnson was able to create an expected payment model for collections, which the team uses to set up their queues for each day. “The Temenos software allowed us to import that file and use the values in it to set up day queues on an automated basis,” he says. “That saved us a lot of time and heartburn, and it brought a lot of efficiency to our calling campaigns.”
Pfieffer says her team has eliminated all of the pre-call work they used to do, like visiting several spreadsheets or other manually updated documents. “It’s all holistically in one place for us to see,” she says. “The biggest piece is the ability to see every account a client has with us at a glance, right on the screen. You pull them up, and it’s all there. There’s no toggling between accounts or going to another service of record platform to try to find more information. Anybody can go in, pull up a customer, and it’s all right there. That has been a huge asset.”
Another added benefit is that a backup employee who isn’t familiar with the process can jump in at any point in time. Pfieffer says it has been a phenomenal tool for cross-training and keeping her team in sync with each other.
Burg says the efficiency of the system has enabled Johnson’s team to touch customers earlier in the default cycle, which has enabled the bank to increase the speed of cash flows. “It’s helped us prioritize our accounts for calling,” Pfieffer says.
We have a greater impact on touching the accounts that we need to reach exactly when we need to reach them. The real-time refresh moves things quicker, so we’re not making a call unnecessarily because we just got the payment an hour ago.”
Christine Pfeiffer, VP Consumer SAG, MTG Servicing, Investor Accounting Manager at Johnson Bank
Pfieffer says the Temenos collection even made a recent Freddie Mac audit easier. “I was able to take them through the processes in Temenos,” she says. “It’s built in a way where it’s just all laid out right there for them. So the audit went phenomenally—Freddie Mac loved it!”
Smooth Implementation
Burg says the Temenos Collection was the easiest implementation Johnson Bank has ever had. Burg attributes this success to the Temenos support and implementation teams. “They were really good resources, and they were dedicated to helping us succeed,” Burg says.
For a new system coming in house, it went so smoothly. We kept finding things right with the software instead of things wrong with it. Temenos’ support and implementation teams were dedicated to helping us succeed. It wasn’t just a job for them. It was passion. We really knocked it out of the park when it came to this implementation.”
Louis Burg, VP Consumer Special Assets Group and Mortgage Quality Assurance at Johnson Bank
● Rolling out new products to alumni quickly and seamlessly
● Accessing online applications through a secure channel that is fully integrated with Temenos software
● Approving credit cards for Stanford alumni in a quickly and securely manner
Stanford Federal Credit Union’s consumer loan origination system was being discontinued, so the credit union needed a new solution that would enable it to evolve with the market. Based in the heart of Silicon Valley with over $2.7 billion in assets, Stanford’s 60,000+ members—the Stanford University community as well as the employees of Google, Facebook, Visa, and over 100 other companies—expected the credit union to deliver products in a seamless, fast, and reliable manner, so it needed a product that could exceed these expectations. Stanford rolled out a board initiative, Consumer Lending Evolution and Optimization, to serve the needs of its members with high efficiency. As the preferred credit card offering for the Stanford University Alumni Association, the credit union wanted to find a way to deliver that product in a seamless, quick, and secure manner.
Creating an Online Credit Card Origination Option
Using Temenos Loan Origination, Stanford built a custom online credit card account opening system. Stanford alumni are able to access the online application through a secure channel that is fully integrated with Temenos software. This allows Stanford to quickly and securely memberize the alumni. “We push these applications right on through and get them into an approval queue,” says Brian Thornton, Chief Lending Officer at Stanford. “We can very quickly approve the credit card for these alumni, and boom… card delivered. It’s awesome!”
Creating Your Own Destiny
“As a CLO, the freedom to partner with financial services provided through API integration is very important,” said Thornton. “We all want to integrate with our preferred vendors, and we are constantly looking to add providers. I want that process to be easy, and I want to be able to control it with my team.”
Temenos’ vision of having an open API allows financial institutions to create their own destiny and choose their own vendor partners. Temenos’ ability to step up and build a solid partnership with its clients also sets them apart.”
Brian Thornton, Chief Lending Officer at Stanford Federal Credit Union
In short, the leadership team at Stanford now operates with complete confidence, knowing they have the software infrastructure in place to support new vendor partnerships, roll out new products to alumni quickly and seamlessly, and continue as a staple of the Stanford University community.
● $4.5bn in client assets managed using the platform
● 4000 High-net-worth clients acquired since 1996
● Increases market share and build its position as a leading private bank in Panama
● Scaling seamlessly as its client base and transaction volumes grow with Temenos
Panama ranks alongside London, Hong Kong, Geneva, and Singapore as a global leader in wealth management and private banking. A stable economy, a business-friendly regulatory landscape, and a high concentration of expertise in asset management have made the Central American nation an attractive prospect for high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and major corporations.
For banks too, Panama is a land of opportunity. Increasingly, clients come from far beyond the traditional heartlands of Europe and the Americas, with many Asian mass affluents and HNWIs now turning to Panamanian banks for investment and portfolio management services.
In this expanding market, competition can be fierce, and banks like MMG Bank face the challenge of capturing and defending their market share. Founded in 1996 by partners at one of Panama’s leading legal and financial service providers, the bank is always looking for innovative ways to grow its customer base and assets under management (AUM).
Providing market-leading services
To help win new clients, MMG Bank aimed to launch services that would empower HNWIs and businesses to protect their assets and reach their financial goals. To support a sophisticated portfolio of new private banking products, the bank looked for a flexible, scalable core banking platform that could manage high transaction volumes.
Maria Elena Hernán, Technology Vice President at MMG Bank, explains: “As a business, we want to build a reputation as a market leader for private and investment banking, with the largest portfolio of AUM among Panamanian banks. To grow our market share, we knew launching innovative products wasn’t enough—we also had to bring them to market before our competitors.”
Deploying best-in-class technology
MMG Bank chose Temenos core banking as the foundation for its new offering. Since the initial implementation, the bank has continued to add new modules to the Temenos platform, increasing the value it delivers for its clients.
During the selection process, we looked for a core banking solution that would scale seamlessly as we added more clients, and a technology partner that could bring an expert voice to the table and offer long-term support. When we found Temenos, it didn’t take long to realise they offered the ideal combination of deep industry knowledge and experience, and best-of-breed technology.”
Maria Elena Hernán,Technology Vice President at MMG Bank
Developing a rich product portfolio
With the Temenos solution, MMG Bank has continued to expand its product portfolio, helping it to deliver high-quality private banking and asset management services. In recent years, the bank has expanded its investment and wealth management division, launching new offerings such as discretionary portfolio management, fixed-income funds, and advisory services.
“The Temenos solution makes it very easy for us to innovate and bring next-generation services to market quickly,” adds Maria Elena Hernán. “Whenever we want to add new functionality or integrate a third-party product with the core platform, it is very simple to complete the process. In particular, the security, fund transfer, and accounting capabilities of Temenos core banking are very impressive, and ensure we provide an exceptional level of protection for our clients and can centralize many key business processes.”
Supporting a growing client base
Since the implementation, the Temenos platform has also helped MMG Bank scale its operations and manage the assets of an increasing number of HNWIs and businesses. Having started with just 20 business users, there are now 180 bank employees working with Temenos Solutions every day. MMG Bank has also grown its client base dramatically, from a handful of clients in 1996 to more than 4,000 today.
The robustness and reliability of the Temenos platform is exceptional. Even as we have increased our client base and transaction volumes, Temenos core banking has never let us down. And when we do have queries about new functionalities or upgrades, there is an excellent local support team from Temenos available in Panama—something not all vendors can match.”
Maria Elena Hernán,Technology Vice President at MMG Bank
Managing multi-billion-dollar assets
Supported by Temenos, MMG Bank today enjoys status as one of the main players in the Panamanian private banking arena. In 2019, the bank managed $4.5 billion in assets, while in 2018 it achieved a net profit of $13.3 million. Working hand-in-hand with Temenos, MMG Bank is confident of further success in the future.
We have worked with Temenos since the very start, and they have been integral to our growth into a leading financial service provider in Panama. The Temenos platform provides the capabilities we need to continue to prosper and develop even more tailored client products and services. All banks looking to innovate should seriously consider partnering with Temenos.”
Maria Elena Hernán,Technology Vice President at MMG Bank
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