PVcomBank

Delivering outstanding customer experiences

Ha Noi, Vietnam

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At a glance

  • Reduced customer onboarding time by 70%
  • 130% customer acquisition increase
  • 200% increase in the number of customers opening deposit accounts online
  • Increased operational efficiency by 40%
  • New mobile app response times averaging less than 1 sec
  • App has achieved a 4.9 star rating on App Store

Founded in 2013, Vietnam Public Commercial Joint Stock Bank (PVcomBank) is the result of a merger between Petro Vietnam Finance Joint Stock Corporation (PVFC) and Western Commercial Joint Stock Bank (WesternBank). Over the years, PVcomBank has expanded to become the fifth-largest digital bank in Vietnam. Thanks to its commitment to deliver ‘Banking for Everyone’, it now serves over three million customers across various segments in Retail, SME, commercial and corporate.

Innovation is a priority for this bank, which is why it rewards curiosity and experimentation. It is not afraid of failure – its culture can be described as “when things go wrong, lessons can be learned.”. That’s why it has established its Venture Studio, a safe space where start-ups are free to explore new concepts and take risks. In addition, the bank’s data sandbox fosters innovation by providing a secure and safe place to experiment with data and uncover new opportunities that can benefit customers and employees alike.

Prioritizing mobile

Mobile banking has long been the primary channel for PVcomBank’s retail business. However, in 2022, it realized its mobile service was falling short of customer expectations.

“Our mobile business was growing – we’d acquired a million new customers in 2022,” explains Trinh Vinh Hien, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank. “Unfortunately, our customer satisfaction score for mobile banking was 60%. We knew we had to make improvements.”

PVcomBank’s customers reported slow performance and poor engagement in the mobile app. At the same time, it was taking the bank more than four weeks to add new features to a product or service. “The limitation of our traditional architecture and legacy technologies had suppressed innovation and slowed our business growth,” Trinh says.

Trinh and his team realized they needed an advanced omnichannel digital banking platform to facilitate a seamless customer experience across any channel and through every step of the customer lifecycle. So, they set about looking for a suitable solution.

Seeking a solution

“We spent around six months evaluating potential vendors,” Trinh says. “We assessed how the various solutions’ end-to-end capabilities might fit with our digital service footprint and compared the scalability, configurability, security, and overall architectures.”

The most suitable solution, however, was on PVcomBank’s doorstep. The bank had already been running on Temenos core for retail and corporate banking for 7 years and was also leveraging Temenos Trade Finance. So, when it discovered Temenos digital banking, it seemed like the perfect fit.

We’d already been benefiting from Temenos’s highly automated processes that have allowed us to increase efficiencies and reduce manual tasks. We were delighted when we found that Temenos digital banking could meet our requirements, too.”

Trinh Vinh Hien

Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank

He points to the impact it has had on Trade Finance. “With the smart banking capabilities of Temenos digital platform, we can now digitize Temenos Trade Finance, meaning we can further increase efficienciesreduce manual tasks and bring this service into online channels for customers.”

Trinh was particularly confident that it would receive adequate support from the software vendor. “There’s a strong Temenos footprint in Vietnam, so this, along with our previous experience working with the company, assured us that we would get all the support we required to accelerate the implementation and get up and running quickly,” he explains.

Recognizing that its existing legacy architecture would hamper a fast implementation, PVcomBank leveraged the Temenos API framework.

By transforming our existing enterprise layers into open APIs, with integration between the enterprise service bus and Temenos digital banking’s backend, we could de-couple our legacy infrastructure and benefit from Temenos digital banking’s cloud-native architecture.”

Trinh Vinh Hien

Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank

This approach to integration enabled PVcomBank to achieve faster time-to-value and helped it operate more efficientlystreamline processes with increased automation, and deliver a faster, frictionless customer experience.

A successful launch

PVcomBank successfully launched its new mobile banking solution in April 2024. “We have already migrated one million retail customers who now benefit from a consistent journey across any device and on any channel,” Trinh says. “We expect to extend the service to all of our three million customers by June 2025, and we also hope to onboard at least 500,000 new customers this year through a B2B2C model.”

Users of PVcomBank’s new mobile app can take advantage of fast and simple onboardingAI-powered assistancepersonalized offers based on their spending behaviors, and more. Slow performance is now a thing of the past, with response times averaging less than a second.

The customer onboarding time has reduced by 70%. At the same time, we’ve witnessed a 130% increase in customer acquisition using the new digital platform and 200% increase in the number of customers opening deposit accounts online.”

Trinh Vinh Hien

Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank

The benefits of Temenos are not just felt by customers. “By deploying Temenos digital banking in a cloud-agnostic architecture, our operational efficiency has increased by 40%,” Trinh says. “We’re also now able to add new features to a product or service in a matter of days. This enables us to keep up with the demands of our customers and remain competitive.”

As a result, overall customer satisfaction has improved significantly. In fact, the new Temenos-powered app has received a 4.9-star rating on the App Store and a 4.6-star rating on Google Play based on feedback from thousands of reviews.

A Temenos-powered future

Trinh is quick to confirm that PVcomBank’s decision to build its mobile app on Temenos digital was the right one.

Our relationship with Temenos has been exponentially valuable for us,” he says. “The company consistently met our high expectations and its ongoing commitment to updating its platforms has been crucial to us. It means we can deliver an exceptional experience to our customers and stay ahead in a very competitive industry.”

Trinh Vinh Hien

Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank

As a result, PVcomBank is certain that it will develop its relationship with Temenos further in the months and years to come. “We have big plans ahead, and we are very confident that Temenos will support us, no matter what we decide to do,” Trinh says. “The newest version of Temenos core banking has a lot of fantastic new capabilities, and we cannot wait to upgrade so that we can further strengthen our position as a leader in Vietnam’s financial services market.”

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ASA International

Developing a full banking offer HQ

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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At a Glance

 Deploying core banking platform in 13 countries

• Handles 1,000 concurrent users on the system every day

• Over 3,000 disbursements per day

• Flexibility to deploy on-premise or in the cloud, depending on each country’s regulators

ASA International is one of the world’s largest international microfinance institutions. It provides small, socially responsible loans to low-income entrepreneurs, most of whom are women, across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in Amsterdam and Dhaka, it has 2.3 million clients across 13 countries and employs 13,400 people. It has an outstanding loan portfolio of $369.2 million.

For Rob Keijsers, the company’s Chief Digital and Information Officer, success is the ability to constantly adapt to uncertain markets. “We operate in countries that are more susceptible to geopolitical risks and where credit rules vary and change.” The goal, he says, is to bring stability to these markets by reducing the number of unbanked and underbanked people. “There’s a big market to win in the next couple of years.”

Bringing modern to the masses

To achieve that goal, ASA International has turned to Temenos, deploying its core banking platform across all markets. Along with an in-house built front-end app, the aim is “to give people at the bottom of the pyramid the same, modern phone banking experience that is typical in developed countries.”

Deployed first in Pakistan in February 2024, the Temenos core replaces a bespoke loan system that the business developed in-house 15 years ago. Rob explains that the upgrade to Temenos reflects the importance of having cutting-edge technology. “To achieve a world-class digital experience, you can’t simply put an API layer on top of an old system. We needed a modular, open-architecture system to run our API on top of.”

Part of the issue was scope. “Our loan management system was just that—it only did loans. We wanted a full-blown core banking system, so that we can offer bank-like services and experiences. Temenos core allows us to move into savings, payments, and micro-insurance. We couldn’t scale like that with our old system.”

To broaden the range of services it offers, ASA International needed a regulated banking license, for which a modern core banking platform is a prerequisite. The company has also deployed Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation to reassure regulators and clients alike of its maturing responsibility.

Country by country adaptability

The key to selecting Temenos was its Financial Inclusion platform.

Temenos Financial inclusion is a great core dedicated for microfinances, with simpler screens and tailored features and functions. It was just what we needed.”

Rob Keijsers, Chief Digital and Information Officer, ASA International

Along with the modularity of the platform, it allows ASA International to easily switch-on new capabilities, on a country-by-country basis. Rob adds that this flexibility can also be applied to deployment. “We needed to take different hosting approaches for each market, in part because data sovereignty regulations vary. The underlying architecture of the platform meant we could choose cloud (Microsoft Azure) for some countries, and on-premises for others. That was a big driver for us.”

People-led implementation

Those not close to the implementation project may be forgiven for thinking it was a simple switchover; and that was the point, says Rob. “On the Friday we closed shop with our old system, and on the Monday morning we were live with Temenos, and it all worked perfectly.”

In truth, that switch-on was preceded by 12 months of hard work. Experience had taught Rob the challenge that comes with large-scale implementations, and the importance of preparation. “It’s like open-heart surgery whilst running a marathon! You’re doing all this work in the background, and having to keep your legacy system running.”

Rob points to the expertise and dedication of the Temenos team as key.

Everyone we came into contact with, from product development to technical support and account management, was phenomenal. It was a real point of differentiation for us.”

Rob Keijsers, Chief Digital and Information Officer, ASA International

Rob recalls how, having dropped its implementation partner midway through the project, Temenos helped them source Systems, who proved to be more suitable. “It’s that sort of dedication and willingness to go above and beyond that defines our relationship with Temenos.”

He says that a big lesson from the implementation project is that IT transformations are more about managing business change than deploying new systems. “I’d say 70% of implementation should focus on user adoption. The technology requires a completely different mindset, a different way of working and redesigning new processes. That’s not always easy to do if your company has been used to working in a certain way for the last 15 years.” His advice for others is to invest in training. “Train, train, and train…and not only your IT operations people, but also all your business users. Make sure that everyone is trained up to the max.”

Bigger, better, faster

The rebooted implementation exercise, which included migrating 700,000 clients in Pakistan alone, is already reaping rewards.

We have 1,000 concurrent users on the system every day, and make more than 3,000 disbursements per day. That’s a significant increase from our old system. When our loan officers come back from the field and they all start working on the system at the same time, without any hiccup, that’s an incredible step forward in reliability for us.”

Rob Keijsers, Chief Digital and Information Officer, ASA International

Rob says another long-term benefit will be the ability to standardise products and processes across the business. “That means less waste, and more focus on driving efficiencies and raising standards, both in our operations and the customer experience.” As an example, he points to the alignment of Temenos core and the company’s in-house front-end app. “Immediately that enables straight through processing (STP) and so takes out a multitude of manual, cumbersome processes. In turn, it frees up commercial resources to focus on new business opportunities.”

Agility will be another benefit. “Now we don’t have to hard-code anything into the product suite, we can make simple improvements to our products fast. That’s a big change.”

Market making

Deployment now moves to Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya (all three will be running on the Azure Cloud), expecting the first country to be live in summer 2024 and the 2 others in 2025 and then to fully rollout the platform to all remaining 9 markets.

Temenos is really investing into this market. Having such a tailored platform for inclusive finance, dedicated to microfinances, is something that Temenos does in a fantastic way that no other company matches. It illustrates that they are not simply a traditional vendor, but a partner that is helping to grow our business and the entire sector.”

Rob Keijsers, Chief Digital and Information Officer, ASA International

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Zain Cash

Expanding from payments to a modern banking offer

Baghdad, Iraq

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At a Glance

  • 100,000 transactions daily
  • Response times decreased by 50%
  • Faster customer onboarding
  • 1.2 million app downloads since launch

Launched in 2016 Zain Cash is a mobile wallet business licensed in Iraq, growing 150% Year-on-year.

The mobile wallet product supports both SMEs and consumers to have easy and convenient access to payment, such as collections and payroll services; money transfer services nationally and internationally as well as bill payment, with more than 10,000 agents across the country providing deposit and withdrawal services.

Zain Cash has rapidly expanded, achieving over 1.2 million app downloads.

Yazen Altimimi, CEO, Zain Cash, explains: “ZainCash attract customers with effortless onboarding and innovative and accessible payment solutions designed for everyday convenience.”

Zain Cash has a network of agents across Iraq, which could be a mobile phone shop, local store, or a gas station. Agents are both cash-in and cash-out locations as well as a registration location, which has the potential to improve and increase banking accessibility and ease.

Building a new future

Innovation for Zain Cash is about leveraging technologies to provide better customer experiences. This is in evidence in their product, which utilizes face ID and iris identification, incorporating AI to improve the customer experience and enhance security.

This appetite for innovation has become more important than ever. While Zain Cash’s only product is currently a mobile wallet, the organization’s vision and ambitions are expanding, with hopes to become a digital bank in the near future. That opportunity also presents a number of challenges. Iraq’s banking sector is very regulated and complex. It is also a very competitive industry. There are 70 banks in Iraq, and more standalone providers of wallets and payment solutions. Against this backdrop is an increasingly sophisticated consumer. Yazen explains: “Iraqis are not the consumer of five or ten years ago. They are now very tech-savvy, and mobile first. As a result, they’re expecting the same level of digital services they could find in more developed countries.”

To deliver this future, Zain Cash deployed Temenos core and Temenos Payments Hub (TPH) in March 2024 with Prema Consulting as the implementation partner. This transition included migrating data and balances from 700,000 wallets.

Yazen says: “In March, we relaunched all our tech stack, so the Temenos core banking platform connected to the middleware TIBCO. We were the first to perform this connection. It was a rebirth for Zain Cash.”

Another area Zain Cash wants to focus on innovating is compliance, risk, financial crime and management of AML all from within the Temenos platform.

Scaling ethically

Before moving to Temenos and TPH, Zain Cash had a mobile wallet solution, but did not feel it fulfilled their vision and plan for the future.

We wanted to scale very quickly. Zain Cash was already processing over 100,000 wallet transactions a day. Regulation in the country and consumer behaviour are both changing. We wanted a system that is agile so we can introduce new products easily and scale quickly.”

Yazen Altimimi, Chief Executive Officer, Zain Cash

Scalability in terms of product development has been matched by the ability to onboard more customers. “With our legacy system, we were very limited in adding new customers. The more we added, the heavier the system became, which compromised performance. Now with Temenos we don’t have that friction. And because we can easily scale, we are able to push our marketing campaigns to drive new sign-ups and improve retention.”

For Zain Cash, growing at scale is also about growing sustainably. And according to Yazen, Temenos is helping them to achieve that too. “We wanted a system that is reliable and sustainable for the future. We have plans to focus on introducing lending products, and that’s something that Temenos does very well. Moving to Temenos means it’s very easy for us to introduce new products very quickly, whether for today or for five years from now.”

While growing at scale and at speed, Zain Cash has implemented ESG principles from the start, especially around its environmental impact.

Being and acting ethically, as well as always thinking about diversity, are important to Zain Cash. In the end, the products we have reflect our organization and our mindset.”

Yazen Altimimi, Chief Executive Officer, Zain Cash

Improving efficiency and reliability

Zain Cash has seen improvements in operational efficiency and reliability since making the move to Temenos, and positive customer feedback has given them more confidence to increase marketing and product development.

Yazen says: “When we launched with Temenos, we were impressed by the operational efficiency that we were able to unlock. We found that work was much more seamless and reliable. There has been no interruption to our daily payment volume of 100,000 transactions, onboarding customers is now faster, and the response times have improved by 50%. We’re also seeing great feedback from the consumers who use our product.”

According to Yazen, Zain Cash intends to keep the momentum going.

We want to utilise and leverage the system very quickly. We’ve already kicked off work on our lending products, and we’re hoping to launch new products by the end of the year as a result.”

Yazen Altimimi, Chief Executive Officer, Zain Cash

Improving efficiency and reliability

Zain Cash has seen improvements in operational efficiency and reliability since making the move to Temenos, and positive customer feedback has given them more confidence to increase marketing and product development.

Yazen says: “When we launched with Temenos, we were impressed by the operational efficiency that we were able to unlock. We found that work was much more seamless and reliable. There has been no interruption to our daily payment volume of 100,000 transactions, onboarding customers is now faster, and the response times have improved by 50%. We’re also seeing great feedback from the consumers who use our product.”

According to Yazen, Zain Cash intends to keep the momentum going.

We want to utilise and leverage the system very quickly. We’ve already kicked off work on our lending products, and we’re hoping to launch new products by the end of the year as a result.”

Yazen Altimimi, Chief Executive Officer, Zain Cash

Looking to the future

Yazen concludes: “Temenos is quicker, more reliable, scalable, agile, and empowers innovation. And there’s still a lot to learn. It’s just the beginning of our journey with this partnership. We depend a lot on Temenos already, and we’re keen to learn more about Temenos models and how we can leverage them in the future. We have big visions for the future and achieving it will only be possible with Temenos.”

“As a leader of Zain Cash for the past eight years, and as someone that has been operating in the financial service sector in Iraq, which is such a challenging market, I believe Temenos is the best product for anyone who has a vision to provide modern financial services, whether in Iraq, in the region, or across the world.”

We partnered successfully with Prema Consulting

Prema Consulting is a fast growing IT company with Temenos core banking functional and technical skilled consultants.

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CreditAccess Grameen

Scaling to serve the needs of low-income households

Bengaluru, India

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At a Glance

  • Supported growth of 22% in the last 4 years.
  • Customer retention of 88%, among the highest in the industry
  • Processes 90,000 loan applications and 3-4m transactions every day
  • New customer onboarding cut from 20 days to less than a week
  • 11,000 new customer applications are accepted every day
  • Core banking upgrade stabilized in less than one month vs six months previously
  • New feature releases are enabled twice monthly

CreditAccess Grameen is India’s largest microfinance institution. It has 4.9m customers and manages assets of over $3.2bn. It employs 19,400 people across nearly 2,000 branches nationwide. Its mission is to be the preferred financial partner for low-income, rural households who lack access to traditional credit, with women making up more than 99.99% of its customer base. It offers a range of microfinance loan products, including business capital, home improvements, family welfare, and emergencies.

 Adapting to local challenges

Relatively low-levels of financial and digital literacy are a big challenge for India, says Sudesh Puthran, CreditAccess Grameen’s CTO. Alongside this, there is a lack of available credit history for people and a diverse mix of 20-25 native languages to cater for. That explains why CreditAccess Grameen employs a vast network of branches nationwide. “We don’t have English-speaking people sitting in our central office managing each village. Instead, we employ local people to work in each village. That fosters a greater relationship between the customer and us.”

A lack of internet connectivity is another issue that CreditAccess Grameen has had to overcome. “We have designed systems that allow our managers to process loan applications offline when connectivity is unstable, and then flush these into our core banking platform when access is back up.”

Customer-centric innovation

Fixing these challenges is the reason why CreditAccess Grameen has become the number one microfinance institution in India and is now more than twice the size of its nearest competitor. “We have designed products suitable for our customers’ situations. We understand that their reality and needs are different from urban customers, and so they need a different approach. Unlike in the city, rural populations don’t tend to get a regular monthly salary. They might get income on a weekly or daily basis, so we align our repayment schedules accordingly.” Sudesh describes this approach as customer-centric innovation.

We don’t straight-jacket our products and expect customers to adapt to them. Instead, we take time to understand their requirements and build the necessary customizations in our core banking platform. So we have gone from having a few products to having a plethora suiting everyone’s individual needs.”

Sudesh Puthran, Chief Technology Officer, CreditAccess Grameen

Low-cost growth

The approach works. CreditAccess Grameen’s annual survey of its customers has seen a steady uptick in satisfaction levels, with over 98% of customers being satisfied with our service delivery. This has driven customer retention rates of 88%. That is coupled with relatively low running costs, achieved by running an agile, lightweight, and automated operation. “We are able to manage annual growth of around 22% in the last four years without exponentially increasing headcount, including expansion into the northern states.” These efficiencies are then passed onto the customer in the form of the lowest interest rates in the market.

Pioneering technology

Since 2015 CreditAccess Grameen has used Temenos core banking to drive efficiencies. Prior to that, it relied on the integration of multiple open-source legacy solutions, which proved challenging in terms of sustainability, support, and data integrity. It was the first microfinance company in India to understand the benefits of deploying a core banking platform and was attracted to Temenos because of its specific capabilities for microfinance. “By leapfrogging onto Temenos’ core banking platform, we put all our issues to rest immediately.”

Customizability and scalability

Customizability has been a major gain. “We can offer our customers all sorts of tailored solutions. For example, flexible repayments (that align with a customer’s income cycle), loan moratoriums necessitated during the COVID-19 pandemic, the ability to perform regulatory obligations like interest subvention by the government during COVID-19 and specific state public holidays have all been easy to configure.” With ready-made lending products also accessible via the Temenos platform, such as automotive or gold-backed loans, CreditAccess Grameen has been able to significantly fasten its time-to-market for new products.

Scalability was the other reason behind CreditAccess Grameen’s decision to choose Temenos.

We process up to 90,000 loan applications every day, some as low as $12 equivalent, and 3-4 million daily transactions, so we need to have a very stable and a robust, high-performing core banking platform to deal with that sort of volume. Today, we are able to keep the business up all the time with close to zero downtimes.”

Sudesh Puthran, Chief Technology Officer, CreditAccess Grameen

One outcome has been the time to onboard new customers, which has been cut from 10-15 days to less than a week since the process was digitised and automated. With around 11,000 new customer applications being accepted every day, the efficiency savings are amplified.

Expert execution

Recently, CreditAccess Grameen has doubled down on its partnership with Temenos. It has extended its Temenos environment to Madura Micro Finance, a business it acquired; and it has upgraded to the latest version of Temenos core banking, working with Nagarro (a Temenos partner) on the implementation. “Nagarro and Temenos were great experiences overall. We had extremely strong support from Temenos to ensure the implementation went smoothly. They understood that engagement with our end business users is really important and that ongoing testing is critical to success. They were key features of both projects.”

As a result, the upgrade was considered stable after just a month from switch-on. Previously, this would take at least six months, says Sudesh. “There was hardly any downtime and we didn’t see a dip in business volume beyond 2-3 weeks, which can normally be for much more period with upgrades.”

This efficiency is carried through to new feature releases and software updates, which are enabled twice monthly. “Having a core banking platform encourages us to make these changes frequently, and keeps our business aligned with our customers’ needs.”

Deeper ties

Looking to the near future, the API architecture of the Temenos core banking platform will support CreditAccess Grameen as it moves into open banking, explains Sudesh. “The fact that we have the Temenos core banking platform will give us an edge to comply with the open API framework.” Other areas of exploration include data lifecycle management, data analytics, data lake, and Temenos Banking Cloud.

Temenos continues to be at the heart of our business.It is much more than a technology. We have a great rapport with Temenos. They are sensitive to our needs and our timeframes. They add value with every capability they provide.”

Sudesh Puthran, Chief Technology Officer, CreditAccess Grameen

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Libra Internet Bank

Keeping up with innovation through payments modernization

Bucharest, Romania

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Romania-based Libra Internet Bank has a reputation for innovation, having launched the country’s first 100% online accounts and loans. It is one of the market leaders for partnerships with financial institutions and fintechs in the European Union. Libra will leverage Temenos’ composable, scalable platform to add other payment rails in future, bringing them together in a single, efficient platform. This will support the bank’s growth plans to double payments volumes over the next five years.

“Using the latest technology to improve the products and services that we offer to our customers is one of our core values at Libra Internet Bank. Temenos has enabled us to modernize our operations and remain at the cutting edge of innovation in the Romanian banking sector. Temenos Payments will build on this success by allowing us to improve more quickly in the payments space, bringing faster, more reliable cross-border payments services to our customers and fintech partners.”

Cristina Mahika-Voiconi

General Manager at Libra Internet Bank

Libra Internet Bank is already using Temenos for core banking. The decision to upgrade Temenos core banking is the culmination of the changes that Libra Internet Bank made to all its electronic and online applications throughout 2013. In less than one year, Libra reconfigured its Internet Banking platform and added tens of new functions, launched the Libra Mobile Banking service and extended the cut-off time for most operations, during evenings and non-working days.

“We’re always feeling that our necessities are the number one priority for Temenos, and every time we had an emergency, Temenos was instantly beside us, with the perfect solution and the right people to implement it. “

Spokesperson at Libra Internet Bank

Adding Temenos Payments will allow the bank to simplify and standardize its payments operations on a flexible, efficient platform, increasing Straight Through Processing (STP) rates and enhancing customer servicing. The platform will support the new ISO 20022 based cross-border payment and reporting standards, expanding data transparency and payment tracking services. Libra Internet Bank will also be able to improve its sanctions screening processes, for which it uses Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation solution, by standardizing on robust, scalable integration points with Temenos Payments. Temenos offers a single platform across all banking verticals and business segments, including payments and core banking, and as a result Libra will benefit from higher investment in R&D. With Temenos, the bank will be able to progressively replace its payments legacy systems and accelerate time to value.


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Aktia

Becoming a leading wealth manager bank by offering customer-oriented banking and financing solutions

Helsinki, Finland

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Finland’s wealth manager bank Aktia, serves more than 250,000 individual and over 20,000 corporate and institutional customers. Aktia offers comprehensive banking and wealth management services through close collaboration between Aktia’s three business areas: Asset Management, Banking, and Life Insurance. In 2013, the bank chose Temenos Core to increase flexibility and productivity, resulting in improved customer service, including shorter time to market for new products and substantial cost savings.

In 2023, Aktia selected Temenos Payments to support the introduction of pan-European instant payments and consolidate all payment rail processing onto a single platform. Adding Temenos Payments will allow the bank to scale, simplify, and standardize its payments operations for all customers.

The Core Banking Platform Behind Asia Pacific’s Leading Digital Banks

Our close partnership with Temenos is yet another step for Aktia towards our vision of becoming a leading wealth manager bank by delivering an excellent customer experience. Aktia provides private individuals, corporate customers and institutions with customer-oriented banking and financing solutions. With Temenos we can deliver the best experience for our customers with faster, more convenient, and user-friendly payment options securely and efficiently.”

Anssi Huhta, CEO, Aktia

The move is part of a strategic platform modernization to deliver a better customer experience for domestic and cross-border payments with improved efficiencies and to meet continually changing regulatory and compliance requirements. By running core banking and payments on a robust, API-first, flexible and highly configurable platform, the bank benefits from integrated accounts and payments processing and low latency execution which is required to deliver high levels of Straight Through Processing (STP) and efficient customer experiences. Choosing Temenos’ cloud-native and cloud-agnostic platform also future-proofs Aktia’s technology strategy, enabling an initial on-premise installation with flexibility for seamless migration of its core banking and payments to the cloud or to SaaS.

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Africa and Gulf Bank

Offering modern-day banking products in Sudan’s evolving digital economy

Khartoum, Republic of Sudan

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One of the progressive banks in Sudan, Africa and Gulf Bank (AGB), has ambitious growth plans as it seeks to bring innovative Sharia-compliant products for its customers within Sudan and internationally to the Sudanese diaspora. AGB has a collaborative vision to develop a payment ecosystem in the country that will drive financial inclusion objectives, foster a culture of digital payments, and channel formal inward remittances. The bank selected Temenos to modernize its digital and core banking capabilities. The Temenos solution, hosted on the cloud, will enable AGB to provide innovative products faster to retail and corporate customers in Sudan and around the world.

Africa and Gulf Bank has developed an ambitious roadmap based on innovative retail, digital and wholesale banking products and services which include critical capability enhancements like instant onboarding, automated AI-based approvals, straight-through-processing and digitized workflows. Building upon our ‘Digital and Agency First’ strategy, the introduction of Temenos core banking and digital banking will allow AGB to develop robust banking services for Sudanese people both at home and in the diaspora.”

Qamber Al Mulla, Chairman, Africa and Gulf Bank

Sudan has a digitally savvy population and a growing fintech industry offering a variety of banking services. Backed with Temenos core banking, AGB will utilize Temenos digital banking as a true omnichannel, multi-experience platform helping the bank to serve its customers on multiple channels and devices using native features. AGB has a customer-centric, digital-first business strategy focused on providing innovative financial products and services and a branch-lite network of outreach to individuals, small and medium-sized enterprises, and corporate customers. Temenos digital and core banking will enable the bank to leap forward in the evolving digital economy of the country by providing modern-day products and financial services in Sudan.

The investment in Temenos core banking and digital banking underscores our commitment to be not only the best bank but also the most innovative. Replacing the core banking system with a cloud-native platform will improve our bank’s operational efficiency and allow us to introduce new products and services, faster to market.”

Nadeem Lodhi, Chief Executive Officer, Africa and Gulf Bank

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Lien Viet Post Joint Stock Commercial Bank

Top 10 Vietnamese Bank to adopt modernized financial products and services

Hanoi, Vietnam

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Lien Viet Post Joint Stock Commercial Bank (LPBank) is one of the top 10 private commercial banks in Vietnam in terms of assets and equity. LPBank is replacing its existing system with Temenos’ modern technology platform that will enable the bank to manage customer accounts and transactions across its retail and corporate activities with improved performance and efficiency, and offer personalized products, faster and at a lower cost.

Leveraging Temenos’ market-leading platform, used by major banks around the world, will help LPBank develop rapidly and realize our goal of becoming the leading retail bank in Vietnam – everyone’s bank. The new system also creates a more integratedseamless customer experience journey, fully digitized from the beginning to the end of transaction channels, while also aiding employees to deliver a world-class service.”

Ho Nam Tien, Chairman, LPBank

By adopting Temenos Core, LPBank will leverage pre-configured banking capabilities tailored to the local market that will enable faster and more cost-effective implementation. The solution will support process automation, thereby minimizing operational errors, improving risk management efficiency, and enabling fast, effective digital transformation. The bank will also benefit from Temenos’ continued investment in its single code base and experience working with 3000 banks across 150 countries.

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At a glance

  • 4 months to implement Temenos core banking platform
  • 50-70% faster timeframes for new product launches
  • 6 months to launch new online mortgage products

Next Bank is a native digital challenger bank headquartered in Taipei, serving retail customers. It launched in January 2022 and is one of only three banks in recent years to have obtained a digital banking license in Taiwan. It is committed to creating banking services that customers may never have imagined with innovative thinkingdesign aesthetics, and friendly experiences. Its main shareholder is not from a traditional banking background, but instead is Taiwan’s largest telecommunications company – Chunghwa Telecom. That goes some way to explain its challenger mentality.

The speed with which Next Bank has captured market attention will encourage Taiwan’s older banks to innovate, predicts Eric Lee, its Chief Information Officer. “Many banks in Taiwan have been established for a long time and are relatively rigid. For them, transformation is a heavy burden.” He offers mortgages as an example of the lack of innovation in the sector. “In the traditional housing loan experience, customers need to go into a bank branch to complete their application. With Next Bank, customers can do everything on their mobile. I think this is a pioneering work.”

Rapid launch

This new online mortgage offer was built and launched in just six months, using the Temenos core banking platform. “Our entire mortgage business, from project approval to overall launch, took only six months,” explains Eric. “That speed is a huge competitive advantage, and will become more so as we launch new products into market.” That short timeframe is largely down to the rapid deployment of the Temenos core banking platform, which took just four months. “We were so impressed by the quick and smooth implementation of the Temenos core banking platform. It meant we could get to work earlier on building our mortgage offer,” adds Eric.

Eric highlights that the speed with which Next Bank launched its new mortgage service has created a stir in the sector. Shortly after the launch, Taiwan Bank, the nation’s largest bank, sent one of their top designers to Next to exchange lessons on how to create a 100% online mortgage product.

This was a great endorsement of the approach and progress that Next Bank has made is such a short period of time, and illustrates how the Temenos core banking platforms is front of mind for any bank when it comes to creating new digital services.”

Eric Lee

Chief Information Officer at Next Bank

Configurability the key

Mortgages are just one service in Next Bank’s new product portfolio, alongside accounts, loans, and insurance. It has all been built and runs on the Temenos core banking platform. Key to the choice of Temenos was the configurability of the platform, explains Eric. “Like every country, Taiwan has specific regulations that differ from other countries. Off-the-shelf solutions would have been very painful for us to customize and integrate. With Temenos this capability is built-in, so launching a new product is much faster.” As an example, the six months it took to launch its online mortgage product represents a 50-70% reduction in the typical timeframes for these projects.

Next Bank will be making the most of this capability. Its next product offers—corporate management and wealth management—are expected to launch very soon, with foreign exchange planned for Q1 2024.

More capabilities under one roof

The breadth of integrated capabilities included on the Temenos core banking platform has made it easier and faster for Next Bank to quickly secure a market presence.

Not yet two years old, Next Bank already offers the most complete product line of any digital bank in Taiwan, thanks to the extensive choice of modules and the ease of integrating them with our existing products. So unlike other banks, our IT team is never a block to the business.”

Eric Lee

Chief Information Officer at Next Bank

The assurance of experience

Reputation was another key reason why Next Bank selected Temenos. Eric notes that Temenos was able to demonstrate deep knowledge of the Taiwanese market and a successful track record of deployments with other banks in the region. For example, in 2022, Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank appointed Temenos to replace its legacy core systems. The success of that deployment gave Eric and his team the proof they were looking for. And plans for Temenos to open a dedicated support hub in Taiwan have provided further reassurance.

What really stands out about Temenos is how it balances the advantages of global scale with the forensic knowledge of specific markets.”

Eric Lee

Chief Information Officer at Next Bank

Other institutions in Taiwan are looking at the Next Bank story with interest. “The balance of standardization and configuration of the Temenos composable banking platform delivers the agility, speed, and cost-effectiveness that can be a good option for legacy and neobanks alike,” says Eric. It also means that separate bank branches can use the same instance of the platform, rather than needing to deploy their own core system.  And the extra competition will be a good thing, he adds. “In this way, we can have more industry exchanges, which is helpful for talent training and innovating the ecosystem.”

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BanCoppel is one of the largest organizations in Mexico, which includes brands such as Afore Coppel and Tiendas Coppel. BanCoppel was the first to offer loans to Mexicans who had no possibility of proving their income, providing them with microloans for small purchases with store credit since 1941. To continue its technological transformation, driving modern banking services, the bank selected Temenos core banking platform. The implementation of this platform will not only provide the bank with greater efficiency and sustainability but will also support BanCoppel’s digital transformation project.

BanCoppel will benefit from Temenos’ proven technology leadershipextensive experience in Mexico, and strong reputation with existing customers. The Temenos core banking platform will enable the bank to continue to scale efficiently as well as offer an integrated ecosystem of easy and accessible banking services.

“Historically, the mass market in Mexico has been underserved by conventional banking, with much less access to credit and financial services. Our objective with this partnership with Temenos is to continue being the favorite bank of the popular class in Mexico, providing solutions that improve their quality of life. This transformation project will increase efficiency by creating an open ecosystem with easy integration through APIs, which will allow us to create easy, simple and more accessible banking services. Temenos has a proven reputation in Latin America and supports banks with a mission of financial inclusion – we look forward to collaborating together and creating a new era of banking.”

Juan Manuel Fernández Islas

Director of IT, Digital Transformation & Operations at BanCoppel

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