Lithuanian fintech company FINCI was founded in 2019 with the mission of offering better payment solutions to SMEs, commercial organizations, and large corporates that have long been underserved by traditional banks. The company prides itself on its ability to deliver high levels of personalized service that goes beyond chatbots and automated help centers – for example, every client gets a dedicated account manager and ongoing support.

Today, FINCI serves customers in over 30 countries with a range of products, including business accounts that allow its clients to transact in multiple currencies from a single dashboard to avoid conversion fees, improve cash flow, and make global trade more efficient. It also offers a suite of fast and flexible payment services that are perfectly suited to complex and unconventional businesses. Innovation is a priority for the company: it was awarded the Fintech Innovator of the Year at the 2023 Lithuanian Fintech Awards for accelerating the use of blockchain technology to make cross-border payments faster. It has also developed an open API ecosystem where it joins with fintechs to develop exciting new products. Sustainability is also important to FINCI, which is why it has moved away from plastic cards and has joined Mastercard’s Priceless Planet Coalition.

Better by design

According to FINCI’s CEO Mihails Kuznecovs, traditional banks are failing tens of thousands of businesses. That’s because complex international organizations such as construction companies, flight operators, logistics firms, and software houses need more support than banks are prepared to give.

“Traditional banking relationships are mostly transactional – banks prioritize interest rates and revenue,” Mihails says. “Fintechs tend to be more focused on building products from the ground up to meet exact customer needs. However, many of today’s fintechs rely on technology alone. This also fails complex businesses. That’s why our approach is different. We want to deliver exceptional experiences for our clients, and that requires a human touch.”

This doesn’t mean FINCI shies away from technology. In fact, the opposite is true. Since day one, the company has leveraged best-of-breed solutions from Temenos that have enabled it to realize new efficiencies, lower its operating costs and thereby focus its efforts on delivering a high level of service to its clients.

Big picture thinking

Despite being a startup, FINCI was keen to build its business on a solution that could scale as it grew and support it in the long term. “You have to think big right from the start, otherwise you end up facing problems later on,” Mihails says. “For us, this meant choosing an industry-leading platform.”

Temenos was the obvious choice.“Several of us already had experience with Temenos solutions,” Mihails explains. “I started my career in banking 25 years ago with the DOS version of Temenos. I’ve seen its reputation grow as a reliable, sustainable, and scalable solution. So, the choice was inevitable; we couldn’t have chosen anything else to build our business on.”

Fast time to value

FINCI chose to adopt three key Temenos solutions: core, Temenos Payments Hub (TPH), and Financial Crime Mitigation (FCM). It worked with several implementation partners to ensure it could go to market quickly.

“Temenos has many partners situated across the world – and that’s a huge benefit,” Mihails says. “It means that there’s support capacity wherever and whenever we need it.” This approach has paid off.

Today, the cloud-based Temenos core `allows FINCI to easily integrate with new payment networks such as Ripple Payments. In fact, the company can onboard new payment providers in a matter of weeks, without a huge investment in internal IT staff.

“We can take new products and services to market faster,” Mihails says. “This gives us an edge over the competition.”

Security made simple

At the same time, the advanced security protocols delivered by Temenos FCM have enabled FINCI to identify potential sanctions and anti-money laundering breaches before a payment completes.

With payments screening completed in just seconds, FINCI can offer the instant payment processing its clients are looking for. “We can process thousands of requests per second without any lag,” Mihails explains. “It’s completely reliable – I don’t recall a time when the system has been down.”

All this can be done while staying compliant. “Temenos Payments Hub supports new global and regional payment rails, including SEPA, SWIFT, and the TARGET2 ISO20022 standard, right out of the box,” Mihails explains.

A foundation for growth

FINCI’s rapid growth speaks for itself. The company started with zero customers in 2020 and now has thousands – many of which are large enterprises. “We’ve gone from processing hundreds of payments every day to hundreds of thousands,” Mihails says. “Today, we are processing over €1.2 billion annually. We have realized a 50% growth in card transactions every year and 100% growth in the volume of payments we are processing.”

Mihails says he owes this success to Temenos.

Reflecting on its success to date, Mihails offers advice to other fintechs looking to hit the ground running in such a competitive industry: “Our success is a result of having a scalable solution that removes a lot of headaches for us,” he says. “With that in mind, I’d encourage any like-minded startup to think big instead of thinking local like so many do. As a first step, engage with the Temenos team. Once you start having the discussion, you’ll see the solution come to life and realize just how easily your problems can be solved.”

Embracing the future

This is just the start of FINCI’s journey with Temenos. Having recently extended its contract from three years to eight, the company is keen to embrace new functionalities and services.

“We’re excited to see what we can achieve with Temenos’ new AI capabilities,” Mihails says. “We’re also looking at integrating with crypto, blockchain, and investment product providers as we look to expand into new markets.”

At a Glance

• Number one ranked app for mobile banking functionality available in Ecuador

• 185% increase in user interactions with the mobile app since deployment of Temenos digital banking

• 312% rise in financial transactions completed on the mobile app in the last two years

• Winner at the ‘Financial Innovators of the Americas Awards 2021’ run by Fintech Americas

Innovation and solid, dependable service have earned Banco Bolivariano a position as a top-five bank in Ecuador, with 821,000 customers and USD 4 billion in assets under management. Founded in 1980, the bank initially focused on the corporate and SME sectors, but also now targets the high-net-worth market with retail banking products, including current and savings accounts, credit cards, and money transfers.

Placing digital transformation at the center of its growth strategy, Banco Bolivariano has developed many ingenious offerings. For example, the bank is the only one in Ecuador to offer customers the option to check their online account in seconds using a ‘quick view’ feature. Banco Bolivariano also builds partnerships with leading cloud providers to explore the use of API gateways for potential future Open Banking initiatives.

Ronald Romero Morán, Head of Digital Channels at Banco Bolivariano, explains: “As most Ecuadorian retail banks offer digital services, we use innovation to stand apart with a unique user experience. From using chatbots to adding fresh features to our online banking platform, we aim to make every digital interaction as quick, simple, and frictionless as possible, leaving our customers more time to focus on the things that matter most to them.”

Planning a more intuitive mobile banking experience

Within its digital channels, Banco Bolivariano identified room for improvement in its mobile banking app, known as 24móvil. Previously, the bank used an application from a local external vendor to run, but they needed a provider with a roadmap of innovative and world-class banking solutions. As a result, the app was falling behind the mobile services offered by competitors, and Banco Bolivariano goal is to become the best digital bank in Ecuador.

Gustavo Molina Flores, Chief of IT at Banco Bolivariano, comments: “We were using legacy solutions that needed almost constant updates and large amounts of time-consuming patching. Maintaining compatibility with new releases of mobile operating systems was also very difficult, and we did not have the tools to build and roll out new features quickly to meet evolving customer preferences.”

Setting its sights on delivering the best mobile banking app in Ecuador, Banco Bolivariano planned a new approach. The bank looked for a best-of-breed platform that would deliver leading-edge innovation capabilities, and enable its developers to enhance the user experience, adding features such as seamless onboarding, greater security, and more flexible payments services.

Deploying best-of-breed development tools in the cloud

To optimize its 24móvil app, Banco Bolivariano sought a partner with a proven track record helping major financial institutions to build first-class mobile banking services. A clear solution roadmap was essential, along with sophisticated development tools to improve time-to-market for new features. After assessing available options, Banco Bolivariano chose to deploy Temenos digital banking solution running on the Temenos banking cloud.

Working with Temenos, Banco Bolivariano implemented the solution and recently completed an upgrade to the latest version, as Gustavo Molina Flores explains: “Although a complex process, integrating Temenos digital banking with our back-office and core banking environment was much easier than expected. Since then, the Temenos banking cloud has facilitated upgrades, keeping us up-to-date with new capabilities.”

Building a culture of innovation across the bank

Using Temenos digital banking, Banco Bolivariano developed and launched a range of more customer-centric mobile services. For example, the bank introduced faster and more user-friendly onboarding processes, cutting-edge biometric authentication options, and peer-to-peer payments. Where the bank’s previous mobile solutions stifled innovation, Temenos digital banking enables its developers to reduce time-to-market for new features.

The deployment of Temenos digital banking forms part of a much wider emphasis on innovation throughout Banco Bolivariano. Recently, the bank adopted agile project management practices to adapt quickly to changing market conditions and strengthen commercial performance. Banco Bolivariano feels confident that implementing the Temenos solution is supporting the progress of this wide-ranging cultural transformation.

Kyra Arcia Marcano adds: “Across the bank, we are taking steps to move faster and improve our service delivery. We have built a technology ecosystem that helps our development teams to design, test, and launch new products. With its extensive ready-made capabilities, Temenos plays a crucial role in enabling us to turn innovative plans into reality.”

Getting ahead of the competition

With the enhanced 24móvil app, Banco Bolivariano is differentiating itself from market rivals and winning more customers. Their last NPS score was 57 compared to an average of 49 from competitors. User feedback for the app has been highly positive, with an app rating of 4 out of 5 stars on Android and 3 out of 5 on iOS.

In the two years since the project launch, Banco Bolivariano has seen the average number of monthly users of the app rise by 127 percent, total user interactions with the app increase by 185 percent, and financial transactions completed through the app grow by 312 percent.

Continuing a prize-winning partnership

The project with Temenos has earned Banco Bolivariano widespread praise from across the American financial services sector. Most notably, the bank recently won silver at the ‘Financial Innovators of the Americas Awards 2021’ run by Fintech Americas in the ‘Customer Experience (CX) & Engagement Innovation’ category. Building on this success, the bank is continuing to explore other use cases for Temenos digital banking.

United Bank Limited (UBL) is one of the largest banks in Pakistan with 11 million customers. In Pakistan, UBL stands apart as a pioneer of ingenious, user-friendly digital banking products and services. In recent times, the rapidly-growing bank has launched the first digital Islamic bank accounts available in the country, along with a unique mobile payment app. The pioneer in digital banking, UBL is working with Temenos and Systems to further leverage the Temenos platform to provide an integrated, digital experience for all retail and corporate customers, covering the entire customer lifecycle from onboarding and origination to servicing.

UBL has gone live with Corporate Lending on Temenos digital banking platform as part of a comprehensive digital transformation of the bank’s retail, SME and corporate banking for domestic and international customers on the Temenos platform. Temenos Digital Banking is the leader in driving customer acquisition and digital banking engagement with its scalable platform, deep analytics, and AI scoring models. The platform enables banks to increase digital revenues and reduce customer onboarding time significantly. The go-live covers loan originations to five segments, including large conventional banking corporates and group companies, Islamic banking corporates, Agri enterprises, Financial Institutions and Small & Medium Enterprises.

The Temenos Corporate Loan Origination solution, implemented with NdcTech, will help UBL to meet the growing demand for digital customer experiences and win business with corporate clients in a highly competitive lending market that has seen demand slowed by global economic conditions and rising interest rates. Temenos solution enables UBL to strengthen its position as a digital leader, delivering seamless online experiences across the entire customer lifecycle—from onboarding and origination to account management. With these banking capabilities integrated into Temenos digital banking platform, UBL can provide a smooth and seamless digital experience while enabling the bank’s corporate lending teams to access the right data at the right time to make quick, consistent and cost-effective credit decisions.

We partnered successfully with Systems Limited

Systems Limited is a global technology public limited company founded in 1977 with the mission to offer holistic transformations to its clients. 

Learn more about Systems Limited

A global leader in the trillion-dollar transactional banking space, Société Generale offers high-quality, integrated financial services to corporate and private clients. With new competitors emerging and client expectations becoming more demanding, the bank looked to reinforce its leading position with more innovative, agile offerings. Working with Temenos, Société Generale is deploying Temenos core banking and Temenos Payments to modernize its account management and payments capabilities in 13 countries across Europe and Asia. Once implemented, the cloud-native Temenos solutions will help the bank stay ahead of the curve, delivering differentiated services that chime with customer requirements. The unified platform will also reduce operational risk and improve efficiency, and ensure compliance with ISO 20022 payments messaging regulations.

One of the largest financial service providers in Morocco, Crédit du Maroc places innovation and digital transformation at the center of its growth strategy. To strengthen customer experiences and diversify its services, the bank will modernize its core and payments systems with Temenos core banking and Temenos Payments. Once implemented, the Temenos solutions will enable Crédit du Maroc to increase internal efficiency, launch new products faster, and offer customers frictionless, omnichannel access to accounts and cards. On the payments side, the solutions will allow Crédit du Maroc to manage rising transaction volumes, and adapt to new regulations and real-time payments schemes—helping it to win new clients and increase market share.

In Ireland and beyond, the events of 2020 have had a lasting impact on consumer interactions with financial service providers. Previously, Croí Laighean customers preferred to talk person-to-person in a branch; now, 80 percent of interactions are online. For Croí Laighean, the new challenge is how to create a digital presence that rivals the banking giants and emerging fintechs. To achieve this, the credit union will replace its legacy, on-premises systems with an agile model using Temenos community banking solution delivered as a Software-as-a-Service offering. Hosted by Microsoft Azure, the solution will enable Croí Laighean to automate processes and eliminate the cost and complexity of managing infrastructure. The rich functionality will enable the credit union to deliver outstanding digital experiences and personalized services, helping it to compete with larger operators.

We partnered successfully with Microsoft

Microsoft’s Financial Services group helps financial firms leverage technology to amplify the impact their people can deliver to drive business success.

Learn more about Microsoft

With more than 40 million unbanked citizens, Egypt is an ideal market for digital banking services, which lower barriers to access. Suez Canal Bank, one of the country’s top 10 financial institutions, is embracing the opportunity. Using Temenos digital banking, the bank is transforming the end-to-end digital experience for customers from onboarding, through opening an account, to ongoing account servicing. Suez Canal Bank is also building on Temenos technology to develop smart banking solutions such as tailored insights and suggestions, generated by combining advanced analytics with AI capabilities. Working with Temenos, the bank is reducing time-to-market for new products, boosting front-office efficiency, and bring banking within reach of millions more Egyptians.

Chile’s third-largest bank, Banco de Crédito e Inversiones (BCI), is well-established on its home turf and is now looking further afield for new opportunities. One of its newest ventures is launching a new corporate bank in Lima, Peru, offering superb digital banking experiences. BCI will use the Temenos Model Bank approach to accelerate the launch, built on Temenos core banking, Temenos Payments, and digital front-office technology. The solution will support cross-border payments, and built-in automation will help the bank maximize back-office efficiency. With help from Temenos, BCI is taking the next step in its growth strategy to expand its corporate customer base fast.

Launched in 2019, SomBank aims to make Shariah-compliant financial services available to Somalian citizens and businesses. With smartphone adoption rapidly rising across the region, the bank looks to provide flexible, user-friendly services that customers can access via mobile, online, and in branches. To realize this ambition, SomBank recently selected the full front-to-back Temenos Islamic Banking platform, which combines the market-leading capabilities of Temenos digital banking and Temenos core banking, and will enable the bank to develop customized products in line with Islamic rules. Temenos digital front office functionality will also ensure a seamless, unified user experience across all devices and branch locations. With the solutions in place, SomBank will be able to improve access to much-needed financial services and contribute to economic growth in Somalia.

At a Glance

• 1st Finance company in MEA to run front-to back banking solutions on the Temenos banking cloud.
• Built a new digital bank from scratch in 2 months.
• 1st time in MEA direct interface from the core banking to the central bank without a middle system.
• A leading innovator in the SME market thanks to the new digital capabilities and channels.

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) represent 94 percent of all companies operating in the United Arab Emirates, and play a pivotal role in the country’s prosperity. For these thousands of companies, success often depends on fast access to liquidity—but in many cases, raising loans through traditional banking channels means navigating complex, paperwork-heavy processes..

This is where Al Ain Finance PJSC wants to make banking better. Founded in Abu Dhabi in 2016 and regulated by the Central Bank of the UAE, the company looks to provide simple, transparent, and practical alternative finance solutions—without the usual hassle and hidden costs. With this client-oriented and innovative approach, Al Ain Finance PJSC aims to help SMEs across the Emirates to gain the working capital they need to thrive.

Selecting digital solutions
on the Temenos banking cloud

Since it began operating in 2017, Al Ain Finance built a positive reputation among clients, particularly for its trade finance services. For the next stage of its growth journey, the finance company targeted a broader portfolio, adding enhanced lending, deposits, payments, and digital services. This strategy, Al Ain Finance believed, would help to sharpen its competitive edge, appeal to more potential clients, and win greater market share.

After assessing offerings from several vendors, Al Ain Finance chose Temenos digital and core banking on the Temenos banking cloud to replace its legacy in-house system and achieve end-to-end digital transformation. The front-to-back digital banking offering on Temenos banking cloud will provide the broadest out-of-the-box functionality for Al Ain Finance to deliver differentiated digital experiences to SMEs. The Temenos banking cloud will be hosted on Microsoft Azure and meant that it could be remotely implemented, simplify its digital business model, and drive operational efficiencies.

Going live in a rapid timeframe

Al Ain Finance managed to implement the new core and digital banking platforms within two months— a proposition made more challenging by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Temenos’ cloud-native, technology was delivered remotely on the Temenos banking cloud to allow the business to respond to increasing demand for digital banking during COVID-19 in the quickest possible timeframe. Temenos and Stoics IT provided the expert resources to complete the go-live for loans, fixed deposits, accounts, payments, and liquidity management solutions within the target date. Soon after, the project team added Temenos digital banking internet and mobile banking functionality and is now working to launch check clearing and direct debits.

Setting the standard for digital transformation

With the successful implementation, Al Ain Finance PJSC became one of the first finance companies in the region to harness the latest version of Temenos core banking running in the cloud. In another ground-breaking move, the core platform interfaces directly with the systems of the Central Bank of the UAE to enable clients to make secure, compliant electronic wage transfers. Combined with making banking better by providing SME’s with much needed access to liquidity, fast, we see Al Ain Finance as a true “Changemaker”.

“Even employees with limited experience of modern core systems find the Temenos solutions easy to use,” adds a spokesperson at the bank. “They particularly enjoy being able to access consolidated customer information through a single interface rather than having to click between multiple applications. Although Temenos offers cutting-edge, sophisticated functionality, the learning curve for users was very quick and simple.”

Technology Innovation improving customer experiences

Supported by Temenos, Al Ain Finance achieved its goal of broadening its service portfolio and winning more business among SME clients in the Emirates. The company now offers a comprehensive suite of lending, deposits, and payments products. These include enhanced Wage Protection System (WPS) offerings, which help SMEs to pay their workers in a timely manner, while registering transactions with the Central Bank.

Furthermore, Al Ain Finance now offers clients the flexibility and convenience of managing their accounts via internet or mobile channels. Rather than relying on traditional customer verification methods, the company integrated its digital services with third-party biometric security solutions—enabling clients to use fingerprint and facial recognition to confirm their identity and positioning Al Ain Finance as a leading innovator in the SME market.

Leveraging Technology to drive efficiency

The Temenos solutions also helped Al Ain Finance PJSC to develop faster, more efficient business processes. For example, users previously created reports manually using spreadsheets to collate data. With Temenos core banking, the company can generate reports at the click of a button, ensuring business leaders gain insights into market trends sooner, and enabling employees to focus more time and energy on value-add tasks.

A spokesperson at the bank concludes: “Working with Temenos has been a great experience. Whichever direction that we take, we know that Temenos will provide the solutions, expertise, and implementation support to ensure our success. It is a great partnership, and we look forward to the next stage of the journey.”