Expanding the presence of cards-as-a-service business into new markets
Birmingham, UK
The white label card and banking-as-a-service provider, Optimus Cards, chose Temenos open platform for composable banking to support the expansion of its cards-as-a-service business. Temenos will help the UK Electronic-Money Institution launch new products faster and scale efficiently as it expands into new markets. As part of Uphold, the global multi-asset digital trading platform with over 10 million users, Optimus has expansive growth plans. It is launching new white-label credit card and multi-asset crypto-enabled debit card services and partnering with local regulated issuers in Europe and the U.S. to expand its footprint and tap new growth opportunities.
Our strategy is based on innovation, speed and flexibility, providing solutions to mutual institutions like credit unions and building societies, and to innovative fintechs bringing Web 3 services to the market. The economics of our offering enables customers of all sizes to offer card services profitably, and that requires a high-performance technology stack. Optimus chose Temenos for the platform’s proven reliability and resilience, and the flexibility to compose solutions for a broader range of Banking-as-a-Service offerings in the future. With a client base that includes over 950 core banking clients and more than 600 digital clients, along with 500 credit unions in the U.S., Temenos has a significant customer ecosystem and experience that will be invaluable as we push into new markets.”
Expanding the presence of cards-as-a-service business into new markets
Birmingham, UK
At A Glance
One of Vietnam’s most established commercial banks with 6 million retailcustomers and 100,000 corporate clients
Modernized with Temenos Core, Temenos Payments Hub, and Temenos Data Hub
10% customer and account growth, 180% transaction volume increase within six months of go-live
2–5x acceleration in time to market for new products
Founded in 1991 in Hai Phong City, Vietnam Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MSB) has grown to become one of the country’s most prestigious financial institutions. With a charter capital of VND26 trillion and nearly 6,700 employees, MSB serves more than 6 million retail customers and 100,000 businesses through a national network of 260 branches and transaction offices.
MSB is known for its forward-thinking approach and deep commitment to customer-centric innovation. As the first joint stock commercial bank in Vietnam, it has always embraced a pioneering spirit—one that is now focused on shaping the future of digital banking in Vietnam.
Our mission is to deliver a more convenient and beneficial life for customers, and by extension the country. That starts with a solid, modern core.”
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Linh, CEO of MSB
Time for change
Like many traditional banks in Vietnam, MSB found itself at a crossroads. The rapid rise of digital-native competitors and changing customer expectations—accelerated by the post-COVID shift toward 24/7 digital banking—made transformation essential.
Customers, especially younger generations, no longer saw banks as physical branches. They expected services to be available instantly, digitally, and seamlessly—from simple payments to more complex lending, trade finance, and forex services. At the same time, the Vietnamese government and central bank began pushing for a cashless society, further accelerating the pace of change.
MSB’s legacy core system had served the bank well. However, it became no longer fit for purpose for a bank accelerating its digital transformation journey.
To move forward, MSB needed a strong, stable, and flexible foundation to support the bank’s long-term digital ambitions.
Wanting a state-of-the-art solution
MSB’s selection criteria was expansive. The new system had to be rich in features, such as straight-through processing and product innovation tools. It needed to be highly customizable, easily integrate with other software, and cloud compatible. It had to be scalable, so that increasing levels of performance and availability could be achieved cost-effectively. And the bank wanted a vendor with a long term vision and commitment to the country’s banking industry and wider market.
After a thorough evaluation process, MSB selected Temenos to power its modernization. Three key solutions were deployed: Temenos Core (providing a modern, scalable banking platform); Temenos Payments Hub (TPH) (enabling efficient, integrated payment processing); and Temenos Data Hub (supporting advanced analytics and data-driven decision making).
Temenos stood out across a number of factors: a rich product suite; a modular and API-enabled architecture; the availability of on-premises, SaaS or managed cloud deployment options; its track record coupled with its long-term vision; and the strength of its implementation team. This all combined to deliver a more optimal total cost of ownership.
We chose Temenos because it gives us a suitable solution with rich functionality, scalability, flexibility, and a strong partner for now and the future.”
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Linh, CEO at MSB
An outstanding impact
With Temenos providing the powerhouse for change, MSB has kicked off new digital programs, among which a new mobile and internet banking platform for retail and corporate clients. The benefits of MSB’s modernization have been significant.
Within just six months of going live customer and account volumes increased by 10% and transaction volumes surged by 180%. Additionally, the bank has seen maintenance costs fall significantly, and a 2-5 times acceleration in time to market for new products.
It is now launching complex new products to market in a matter of weeks instead of months. These include rate sharing sponsored lending for employee apartment buyers; certificate of deposit buy and sell; and forward rate agreements (CCS/IRS).
With Temenos, we can bring new products to market faster—weeks, sometimes even days, instead of months. That’s a huge competitive advantage.”
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Linh, CEO at MSB
Trusted beyond the tech
Mr. Nguyen explains that the experience and expertise of the Temenos team was crucial in achieving this fast start. He points to three key areas of the implementation. First, striking the right balance between a fast deployment while ensuring no compromise on the customer experience. Secondly, setting smart priorities while creating enough flexibility in the plan to be agile. Finally, the value of piloting new capabilities as early and as often as possible.
The experience, he adds, demonstrates how Temenos is far more than a technology vendor. “They are equally committed as we are to making our investment work. They define success not simply about the now, but about delivering our long-term vision.”
Looking ahead, MSB plans to continue building on this foundation. The bank is exploring upgrades to the latest Temenos releases and evaluating the Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation suite to strengthen compliance and risk management.
Mr. Nguyen and his team are now looking to the future with more confidence than ever.
With Temenos, MSB has laid the groundwork for the next chapter in our transformation journey—one defined by innovation, inclusion, and impact.”
Expanding the presence of cards-as-a-service business into new markets
Birmingham, UK
At a Glance
• 2.16 million DNI accounts opened in the first six weeks, with peaks of more than 89,000 daily enrollments.
• Approximatively 5 minutes for customers to activate digital accounts, 90% faster than using the previous core platform.
• Sub-millisecond response times ensure a fast, seamless customer experience
Banco de la Nación del Peru plays a pivotal role in the Peruvian financial system, operating both as a central and a retail bank. On the one hand, the bank manages state accounts, foreign trade and debt, collects taxes and makes payments on behalf of the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Banco de la Nación also runs programs that support financial development and improve quality of life for Peruvian citizens.
“We aim to boost financial inclusion in Peru, bringing banking services closer to citizens, especially in remote areas traditionally underserved by banks. To reach these people, we focus on innovation, such as digital banking services that enhance accessibility and enable fast and secure services.”
Jaime Bravo Xavier, Alternative Channels Manager at Banco de la Nación del Peru
Delivering vital financial assistance
The COVID-19 pandemic made Banco de la Nación’s work more important than ever. To protect vulnerable citizens and businesses, the Government launched a series of relief schemes, including the Yanapay bonus, a state grant for low-income households and those living in poverty.
To disperse Yanapay funds to citizens in need, the Ministry of Economy and Finance asked multiple financial institutions, including Banco de la Nación, to implement a payment strategy. In response, the bank made available, among other services, the DNI Account, named after the official term for citizen identification numbers in Peru. Opening a DNI Account would enable users to receive payments from Yanapay, as well as accessing other financial services, virtually, without exposing them to the risk of contagion.
Janny Nicasio, Business Solutions Leader of DNI Account Project at Banco de la Nación del Peru, continues: “In the long term, we wanted the DNI Account to offer citizens a range of innovative and integrated banking capabilities, such as interbank money transfers, withdrawals in correspondent agents and payment of services. And ultimately, our dream is for all Peruvian citizens to enjoy access to a DNI Account.”
Building an agile core banking environment
Pedro Martin Hidalgo, Technical Leader of DNI Account Project at Banco de la Nación del Peru explains: “Rather than use our mainframe-based systems, we decided to deploy a new core environment to support the DNI Account. Along with rapid product development and exceptional performance, we wanted a solution that would provide an intuitive customer experience and help to encourage adoption among Peruvian citizens to digital banking.”
Deploying a proven, world-class platform
To identify the right solution, Banco de la Nación conducted an analysis of several market-leading vendors. Ultimately, the bank chose to work with Temenos and his business partner Techmill Technologies* to deploy Temenos core banking, Temenos Analytics, and Temenos Payments running on the Temenos banking cloud.
“Independent analysis from the likes of Gartner informed us that Temenos was the world-leader for core banking, with an excellent reputation for innovation. We also considered the scalability of their solutions, which would allow us a solid growth. Plus, we wanted to take advantage of the technology and infrastructure in the cloud, which will allow us to increase productivity and reduce risks“
Janny Nicasio, Business Solutions Leader at Banco de la Nación del Peru
Pedro Martin Hidalgo adds: “Techmill Technologies* coordinated the implementation to meet our timelines, and their communications and dedication have been positive. Their support has been integral to our success.”
The Temenos solutions sit at the heart of Banco de la Nación’s digital banking ecosystem, integrating with systems from ten other vendors, including customer acquisition, communications, and digital wallet tools. Once live, the bank’s multidisciplinary teams used the Temenos solutions to test and optimize the DNI Account.
Janny Nicasio comments: “During the development phase, the Temenos banking cloud really showed its value. We could run multiple environments at the same time, which simplified stress testing (carried out in 2021) and simulations; and allowed us to measure aspects such as transaction times before fine-tuning our approach. Adopting the cloud model made a challenging and potentially complex process much easier.”
Reaching millions of citizens in need
Since the launch of the DNI Account in October 2021, Banco de la Nación has achieved extraordinary growth, with over 2.16 million accounts activated in the first six weeks and peaks of more than 89,000 daily activations.
Pedro Martin Hidalgo adds: “Reaching more than two million DNI Accounts in such a short time period represents a huge success for Banco de la Nación. Working with Temenos, we have created a digital banking service that enables vulnerable and low-income Peruvian citizens to receive vital Yanapay support payments, which will help them through these challenging times.”
An intuitive experience that encourages adoption
Despite rocketing demand and transaction volumes, the performance, scalability, and robustness of the Temenos solutions ensure a seamless experience for DNI Account holders. After adapting together the different platforms, the Temenos solutions provide sub-millisecond response times for Banco de la Nación customers when checking their accounts, with minimal errors and deviations even during peak transaction times. As a result, users are highly satisfied with the service.
“Thanks to the Temenos solutions, customers can open a DNI Account in approximately five minutes. And they enjoy immediate access whenever they check their balance online. We have created a seamless, intuitive experience that will continue to attract more users, including citizens previously unfamiliar with digital banking.”
Luis Arrus, Digital Banking Manager at Banco de la Nación del Peru
Bringing financial services to every corner of Peru
Banco de la Nación del Peru plans to add a number of features during 2022 and 2023, including transfers, payments, virtual POS and digital wallet options. In 2022, Banco de la Nación expects to reach more than 10 million DNI Accounts, for Peruvian citizens over 18 years old. It is estimated that, by December 2023, the DNI Account will make it possible for all Peruvians over 18 years old to have a 100% digital bank account. With this account, they can carry out operations through various physical and virtual channels such as receiving payments, saving, making transactions, and even having a financial history.
Janny Nicasio concludes: “Working with Temenos and Techmill Technologies* has been satisfying It has helped us take another step towards our goal of making the DNI Account available to all Peruvian citizens.”
*Techmill joins forces with Nagarro
We partnered successfully with
Nagarro is a global digital engineering leader with a full-service offering, helping Temenos clients become innovative, digital-first companies and enabling them to run intelligent and agile operations powered by data and automation.
Expanding the presence of cards-as-a-service business into new markets
Birmingham, UK
The Swiss Private Bank, Mirabaud, will be launching the largest project the bank has ever embarked on. Starting in the Spring of 2022, Temenos will be supporting Mirabaud to move from a traditional on-premise system to a digital end-to-end wealth management platform on Temenos Banking Cloud. In a market that is becoming increasingly competitive with the entry of neo-banks and fintech, Mirabaud intends to fully restructure its technology stack to adapt quickly to the demands of new clients. With the generational transfer of wealth, new regulations, and growth in asset classes such as private equity and digital assets, Temenos Banking Cloud gives Mirabaud the agility to quickly adapt to changing investment opportunities and client expectations. The move to cloud solutions will help Mirabaud prepare for the future. It is a foundational element of the current ongoing transformation.
Wealth is currently the trend for the younger generation due to inheritance and entrepreneurship. Customers are becoming more socially and environmentally concerned. Customers are also interested in new products and services, such as private equity, and cryptocurrency. For traditional banks like Mirabaud, staying relevant is a must. They aim to build hyper-personal, highly informed, and transparent digital customer experiences. Temenos demonstrated its advanced technology architecture to deliver the utmost secure cloud-native platform.
The global solution based on the Temenos SaaS model will actually help us grow while maintaining an efficient operating model. With this new digital ecosystem, we will have the client experience tools to help us prepare personalised advice and encounters with increased efficiency, allowing us to further spend quality dialogue time with our clients. We will be able to adapt more quickly to their needs, cater for future market trends, and remain committed to our core value of delivering a passionate, personalised, human service.”
Camille Vial, CEO at Mirabaud
Mirabaud will adopt the complete suite of Temenos wealth banking capabilities, from self-service channels and portfolio management to back-office processing, including Payments, Financial Crime Mitigation and Data Lake that will enable Mirabaud to deliver a digital customer experience with personalized services and highly automated processes. Mirabaud will benefit from the global solution based on the Temenos SaaS model, which will allow the bank to grow while maintaining an efficient operating model. Adopting the latest SaaS technology, Mirabaud will be able to adapt more quickly to its customer’s needs with increased efficiency, cater to future market trends, and remain committed to its core value of delivering passionate, personalized, human service.
This key investment for the Mirabaud Group is a clear demonstration of our dedication to our clients, positioning ourselves as a leading partner for them today and the generations to come. We are working to carry on adapting quickly to their needs and market trends while never losing sight of our core vision and values to combine our entrepreneurial and passionate human approach with cutting edge technology.”
Camille Vial, CEO at Mirabaud
Exclusive: Wealth Management 2.0 – The Big Opportunity That Only Technology Can Deliver
Camille Vial, CEO of Mirabaud, the Swiss private bank, and Max Chuard, Former CEO of Temenos, recently had a conversation about where they see tech trends going in the wealth management industry.
Expanding the presence of cards-as-a-service business into new markets
Birmingham, UK
BforBank, the fully digital bank of the Crédit Agricole Group, launched in 2009, offering a new approach to savings, life insurance, mutual funds, and e-brokerage to the French mass affluent market. The online bank has since expanded to provide a full suite of retail banking services, with accounts, payments, and lending products, including mortgages. The bank is moving from an on-premise implementation to using Temenos core banking solutions on Google Cloud to tap new growth opportunities and drive efficiencies at scale. As banking becomes more collaborative, moving to a fully cloud-native, API-first stack on Google Cloud will give the bank hyperscale agility, flexibility, and scalability to launch new services faster at a lower cost.
The banking world is changing fast. After 12 years of successful operations and ahead of new strategic initiatives, we wanted to challenge our initial choices. We initiated a complex process and tested several software vendors with proof of concept on Google Cloud. Temenos was just the obvious choice, having invested relentlessly during the past years to deliver the most open and secure cloud banking platform for composing and deploying banking services at scale.”
Expanding the presence of cards-as-a-service business into new markets
Birmingham, UK
Member of Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank Group, the third-largest financial institution in the UAE, ADCB Egypt will be offering next-generation digital payments in collaboration with Temenos open platform for composable banking. ADCB Egypt will implement Temenos Payments to adopt new global standards such as ISO 20022 and SWIFT GPI and power new payment offerings, including instant and cross-border payments, for its retail and business customers. In addition, ADCB Egypt will compose digital banking solutions with the latest core banking capabilities to streamline and automate its treasury management lifecycle.
ADCB Egypt is always keen upon embracing the latest technologies and partnering with the best service providers. This new step of our existing collaboration with Temenos will empower the bank’s internal systems as the new instant payments solutions. The technological upgrades will always keep us ahead in offering our customers the best-in-class service quality and comply with regulatory directives. This is also in line with our digital transformation strategy and commitment to being at the forefront of innovation that differentiates our service, delights customers, and meets their growing needs.”
Ihab ElSewerky, Managing Director & CEO at ADCB-Egypt
Expanding the presence of cards-as-a-service business into new markets
Birmingham, UK
At a Glance
● 9 months to develop and launch a new mobile banking app, later reduced to just 4 months for subsequent apps.
● Over 550,000 customers now actively use the bank’s apps
● Contributes to 30% annual growth in mobile app usage
● 95% of total transactions run on digital channels
● 57% of digital banking is on mobile only, resulting in 33% increase of transactions
One of the ten largest banks in Italy, Credito Emiliano SpA (Credem) has been helping customers to manage their finances for more than 110 years. Headquartered in Reggio Emilia and listed on the Borsa Italiana stock exchange, the bank offers wealth management services alongside retail, business, and corporate banking. With 1.5 million customers, Credem reported total assets under management of EUR 65 billion.
Digital services are a strategic priority for Italian banks, especially since the pandemic has limited access to physical branches. As the battle for market share intensifies, they strive to differentiate themselves from the competition with online and mobile services that place simple, secure, and intuitive financial tools at users’ fingertips.
Fabio Caliceti, Head of Digital Channels, Credem, explains: “We are evolving our business model, pushing very strongly towards a full omnichannel service, with an optimal mix between human and digital to meet the highest and most demanding client needs. To build long-lasting relationships with customers, with regard to digital channels, we aim to make every digital touchpoint and digital contact as frictionless and easy to navigate as possible.”
Fostering a culture of established digital innovation
In 2019, Credem committed to innovation by working on various initiatives. These included setting up a stronger connection with the fintechs and introducing new leading-edge technologies such as automation, artificial intelligence, and chatbots to enhance the bank’s services.
This emphasis on innovation has sparked strong growth across Credem’s digital channels, but the bank saw opportunities to improve its mobile banking app. With its previous development platform, Credem found adding new features and performing maintenance a time-consuming and labor-intensive process.
Andrea Ferrari, Head of Touchpoints, IT Department, Credem, adds, “There was a risk of our mobile app becoming outdated and falling behind the competition. Our platform vendor offered no real technology roadmap, with limited investment in new functionality. We had significant growth in app usage, but we need to make ongoing improvements to maintain that momentum.”
Innovation takes many forms, and a relatively new focus for Credem is on extending ESG-related services beyond traditional enterprise customers to retail.
Andrea Ferrari clarifies, “We are launching a new project to understand what we could do as a bank on the ESG side, in line also with new European regulations, to help our customers better understand their environmental impact. And being able to share our ESG focus and goals with Temenos who is committed on sustainable business practices for a while, is certainly an advantage for us.”
Selecting a low-code development platform
Credem planned a new mobile app for retail banking, private banking, and small and medium-sized business customers called “Digital Banking” with a fresh design and a rich array of tools to empower users to manage their accounts. It was subsequently decided to build dedicated apps for each audience. To build the two new apps, Credem assembled a team of developers, business analysts, and Product Owners, and decided to use Temenos digital banking on Temenos SaaS with infrastructure running of AWS.
Temenos offered a very useful low-code platform that would allow our teams to develop the new mobile apps in JavaScript and bring new front-end features to market rapidly. Cloud and CI/CD are two pillars of our IT strategy, so we also wanted a partner with proven service delivery capabilities, letting us the opportunity to stay focused on new functionalities. The Temenos team demonstrated considerable experience using CI/CD methodologies to test, develop, and deploy new banking apps.”
– Andrea Ferrari, Head of Touchpoints, IT Department at Credem
He adds, “The Temenos SaaS ensures that we avoid the hassle and costs of managing infrastructure, which has formed a key part of our IT strategy for many years. The cloud model also gives us elastic scalability, allowing us to provision resources at the click of a button during testing and development.”
Developing and launching quickly—despite the pandemic
Credem started the implementation just as the pandemic struck, with lockdowns sweeping across Italy. To keep work moving forward, the project team moved to a remote deployment and development strategy, based on an agile framework. Working together, Credem and Temenos completed the discovery phases, created and tested the alpha version of the new app, and launched the full version on the market in just nine months.
Completing such a complex project fully remotely wasn’t easy at all, but Temenos helped to minimize disruption, bringing wide-ranging skills and competencies to the table, this, added to a strong commitment from Credem people has achieved the goal of completing the development and launching the new app in nine months; a really excellent result.”
– Andrea Ferrari, Head of Touchpoints, IT Department at Credem
During the development process, Credem made full use of Temenos Country Model Bank functionality, which provides prebuilt workflows, such as payments and money transfers, that, after some evolutions defined during the project, are now fully compliant with local Italian financial regulations, helping to reduce project complexity and accelerate time-to-market.
The omnichannel low-code Temenos platform was pivotal to success, as Andrea Ferrari confirms, “With the Temenos solution, we were able to use the same code for both the iOS and Android versions of the app. We could work as a single, unified team throughout, focusing all our strengths on a single technology and not splitting on different mobile operating systems. Our users found the Temenos platform easier than other technologies, we have invested time in skilling our people, and in a short time we have been proficient with the tools.”
Leveraging on the know-how to deploy new apps
Following the successful launch in January 2021, Credem gradually rolled out the new apps to approximately 450,000 individual and SME customers.
In early 2023, Credem built on the success of these apps with the release of two new mobile apps for the needs of private banking customers from Credem Euromobiliare Private Banking, which is part of the Credito Emiliano group, one for individuals and another for businesses.
And they were built much faster this time round. As Andrea Ferrari explains, “These two new apps were built in four months each as we leveraged the paradigm of the previous apps and the experience of the team involved. It was quick and easy to adapt the current apps to create the new ones.”
Furthermore, it is easier to deploy new features and enhancements. In 2023 alone, Credem launched 11 version updates. It’s a record, as Andrea Ferrari highlights, “We are delighted with the Temenos digital platform, which allowed us to deploy 11 releases in nine months. It is exceptional and it’s indeed more than five times the number of releases per year we had prior to working with Temenos”. The number of releases further increased in 2024 to an impressive 12 version updates for the main retail application and another 16 for the Private Banking and SME applications.
Delivering a superior in-app experience
The apps features a simplified, frictionless design and interface that makes it easy for users to navigate the various menus and features, while multi-factor authentication, including biometrics options, ensures the highest levels of security. Credem has also embedded the mobile token used for authentication and transactions in a smoother fashion.
Within the apps, Credem customers can activate and manage cards, view transaction records, make and schedule transfers, top up prepaid payment cards, and as well as manage bill and tax payments.
Recently, Credem just launched its first 100% digital-only savings account and has signed 15,000 brand-new customers already. They can now apply for new debit and credit cards via their app, rather than having to go into a branch.
Andrea Ferrari explains why this new offer is a gamechanger, “It’s enriching our customer proposition. We are offering something remote for people who don’t want to come into a branch and who prefer to stay at home.”
Andrea Ferrari adds, “With Temenos, we can make enhancements to our mobile app that were more complex with our older platform, ensuring that we continue to improve the user experience. The solutions enable us to develop and bring new services to market rapidly; we have already introduced smart credit card management and payments options, and added account aggregation.” And users are responding positively to these enhancements. The new apps now average four stars in Apple’s and Google’s app stores, up from three stars.
Moving forward, Credem also intends to harness third-party integration tools leveraging the partner ecosystem Temenos Exchange, to further enhance its mobile banking services, as Andrea Ferrari explains, “With Temenos Exchange, we can connect seamlessly to leading-edge fintech solutions, avoiding the complexity of in-house development. Temenos gives us all the tools that we need to cement our status as a leading innovator among Italian banks.”
Attracting more and more app users
Working with Temenos to develop these apps has helped Credem to attract new users for its mobile banking services. In recent years, the bank has achieved consistent 30 percent annual growth in app usage and downloads, with over 100 million transactions across all its digital channels.
Today, Credem’s apps are used by over 550,000 active customers, while 95% of total transactions now run on digital channels (Mobile, Online Banking, etc.), keeping the mobile application at the core of digital evolution process. Indeed 57% of customers accessing the bank’s digital services are doing so, solely through one of Credem’s apps.
In the first 12 months the bank has seen a 41% increase in app downloads, a 39% increase in logins, and a 17% rise in app active users. This rate of adoption has resulted in a 33% increase in the number of transactions and payments performed via mobile. Fabio Caliceti adds, “Temenos has been an important pillar in the ongoing growth of our mobile app. Along with the dedication of our development teams and our strong focus on innovation, the Temenos solutions have helped us to accelerate our digital transformation and evolution towards omnichannel service delivery.”
Credem has redesigned its online banking channels using Temenos, building streamlined journeys for every stage of the customer lifecycle, from onboarding and origination onward. The new web-based digital banking experience and instant payments are the new projects that are in implementation. Credem values the partnership with Temenos and the ability to have workshops between both teams to align roadmaps.
Temenos is a great partner to Credem, always sharing useful information and looking to assist us in new ways. With Temenos, we are building innovative digital banking services that will help to strengthen our ties with our customers and differentiate ourselves in a competitive market. We are confident that we are looking at a brighter future, and Temenos will be a key part of this.”
– Andrea Ferrari, Head of Touchpoints, IT Department at Credem
We partnered successfully with
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a secure cloud services platform, offering compute power, database storage, content delivery and other functionality to help businesses scale and grow.
Expanding the presence of cards-as-a-service business into new markets
Birmingham, UK
At a Glance
• Temenos Core deployed in just four months and digital in nine months
• Time for new product developments cut to hours
• Customer base grown 19x from 700k to 13.2m
• Able to onboard tens of thousands of customer every day
• Loan portfolio growing by 50% year-on-year
Cooperative Bank of Oromia (Coopbank) is an Ethiopian bank established by farmers 19 years ago. Their influence remains strong; more than half of the bank’s shareholders are still farmers, and it remains focused on the MSME farming and agricultural sector, which contributes more than 80% of the national economy, yet suffers from high levels of financial exclusion.
Coopbank is well on its way to fulfilling its goal to be the leading private bank in Ethiopia by 2025. It is already one of the country’s most profitable banks, with a total asset value of more than ETB 139.56 billion, operates 745 branches, employs more than 15,000 people, and has more than 13 million account holders, covering retail, corporate and institutional clients.
Nobody left behind
At the heart of this ambition is a mission to transform livelihoods and empower communities. “That is ultimately what we mean by innovation,” explains Aman Semir, the bank’s Vice President for Technologies and Digital Banking. “It’s really about solving people’s problems.” That mission goes hand-in-hand with a focus on ESG. “We’re early on in that journey, but we’re starting to see the fruits of our framework. For example, around 100 branches are now fully powered by solar and wind energy.”
Half of those branches are containers that have been modified. “We locate them in remote places where there is no electricity, and provide free Internet. For the people around there, they have become more than a bank branch. They are education and community gathering centers.”
Aman calls this the bank’s ‘phygital’ approach
You can’t be a digital bank without first educating people. So we need the physical place where this can happen.In parallel, it is building for the era of open banking. We’ve leveraging open APIs to integrate any third party to our bank.”
Aman Semir, Vice President Technologies and Digital Banking at Cooperative Bank of Oromia
It is this dual track – of both readying for future opportunities while ensuring nobody gets left behind – that marks the Coopbank out.
A great fit from the start
To deliver this strategy, Coopbank turned to Temenos, deploying the core banking platform in 2016. “Everyone had become frustrated by our legacy system. Staff were having to stay in the office until midnight to record the day’s work, such as new accounts opened. You just can’t grow with that sort of inefficiency.”
The bank found its way to Temenos through a combination of Gartner ranking and reviews, RFP response, customer references and personal experiences of employees. It has not looked back. “From the start, Temenos was a really great fit. The past six to seven years have proved that our choice was the right one.”
The evidence for that is everywhere. In that time the bank has grown 19x its customer base from 700,000 to 13.2 million, and is now growing its asset value by 40% year-on-year. Loan portfolio has been growing 50% year-on-year for the past six years, and deposits have increased 39% to 42% in the same timeframe
In the face of sharp growth, the platform has proved scalable and flexible. It can accommodate anything. We can come up with any new product, any configuration or third-party integration, and the system just handles it all.”
Aman Semir, Vice President Technologies and Digital Banking at Cooperative Bank of Oromia
Aman paints a before and after comparison to illustrate his point. “Before Temenos, just to come up with a simple saving product would have taken us a long time. We were forced to go to our vendors and wait for them to configure their systems. But now we can do that in just a few hours, both in-house development and third-party integrations.
Powerful partnerships
For these projects the bank accessed the Temenos certified partner network to source its implementation partners – USI for the initial implementation, Inlaks for the upgrade, and Xpert Digital to enable Temenos digital.
“It’s always been a smooth and fast process – just four months for the initial deployment, and nine months for Temenos digital.” Aman recalls that, back in 2016, the bank chose not to involve Temenos in the implementation, but instead used the model bank configuration. “The scope and flexibility of that template meant when we upgraded, there was nothing to change. It was almost too good to believe!”
Deepening the partnership
As well as upgrading the core banking platform to the latest version in 2023, Coopbank also added Temenos Trade Finance, which it uses to offer interest-free banking to Islamic customers.
With Trade Finance we have enabled automations that have reduced processing times, so that now the back-office runs more smoothly.”
Aman Semir, Vice President Technologies and Digital Banking at Cooperative Bank of Oromia
The bank has also enabled Temenos digital to its suite. “It’s brought customer onboarding to the next level. We’re now able to onboard tens of thousands of customers every day, and give them a world-class experience.” It means the bank can be confident in making ambitious projections. “In the next 12 months we aim to onboard more than five million customers.” Aman explains.
On the way to the top
Aman explains that Temenos has become so important to the bank that the partnership is seen as one of the critical halves of its operation, alongside leadership. As such, it plans to double-down on its investment. “Even though we upgraded the platform just a year ago, we’re already considering adding more modules, so we will probably not wait another three to four years to do another upgrade, but get on with that very, very soon.”
Aman is confident about what that will mean for the bank’s future.
Seven years ago, when we started with Temenos, we were ranked number 11-13 nationally in most banking parameters. Now, we are a number three or four bank, and we are improving all the time. We’re a proud and happy Temenos customer.”
Aman Semir, Vice President Technologies and Digital Banking at Cooperative Bank of Oromi
Xpert Digital (XD) is a Certified Temenos Services Partner specializing in delivering exceptional digital experiences by creatively nurturing innovation with technology.
Expanding the presence of cards-as-a-service business into new markets
Birmingham, UK
Led by the two pioneers in the banking industry, Frank Trotter and Vincent Amato, the US challenger Bank Battle Bank, has selected Temenos SaaS to underpin the global markets technology stack. Using Temenos’ model bank methodology and the pre-composed banking services, the bank will be able to quickly roll out its world markets division, offering innovative solutions with hyper-efficient cost structures.
We’ve created Battle Bank to fill a widening gap in the traditional banking landscape — to offer high-yield interest accounts coupled with access to the world markets. To make that vision a reality, we need technology that is fast, open, and scalable as we continue to grow our offerings. This partnership with Temenos will provide exactly that, making our clients’ experience as seamless and efficient as possible.”
Frank Trotter, President and Board Member at Battle Financial, Inc.
With Temenos core banking and payments solutions, Battle Bank will be able to offer its clients a diverse set of opportunities in F.D.I.C. insured foreign currency and market index deposits and the ability to acquire, store, and borrow against non-F.D.I.C. insured precious metals.
We are building Battle Bank to offer exceptional banking values and unique investing offerings, With Temenos, we know that it’s possible to launch fast and scale quickly. The unprecedented breadth, depth and scale of the platform’s modular banking capabilities creates opportunities for our customers to prosper through a diversification of financial holdings with us.”
Vincent Amato, Chief Operations Officer at Battle Financial, Inc.
Expanding the presence of cards-as-a-service business into new markets
Birmingham, UK
“Businesses on every continent rely on Atradius to support their international and domestic trading activities. Headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and operating in more than 50 countries, the company is one of the largest trade credit insurance providers in the world, offering tailored services that help small, medium, and large enterprises to protect themselves against risk from their debtors.
Atradius identified that using innovative machine learning tools to analyze credit applications would reduce the manual workload for underwriters, and accelerate assessment workflows while reducing claims.
Atradius chose to deploy the Temenos self-service Explainable AI (XAI) platform due its high accuracy as well as being the only one that generate XAI models and could explain the decisions made by AI. Implementing Temenos XAI was a smooth process, and Temenos provided excellent support throughout. The Temenos XAI models helped Atradius to refine and improve the accuracy of the predictive models. The solution has gained the confidence of Atradius underwriters (where the solution also provides information on the reasoning behind the recommendation in plain language) and now plays an integral role in their workflows.
Atradius work with Temenos has been a huge success, helping to improve the quality of Atradius client services, reduce their exposure to risk, and strengthen their marketposition.”
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