At a Glance

• First bank in Egypt to go live with native ISO 20022 MX messaging

• Enabled fully native SWIFT payments

• Significant STP gains and automation by replacing previous Funds Transfer module

• Fully integrated with Temenos Core

Established in 2020, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank Egypt (ADCB Egypt) is a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank Group, one of the leading banking institutions in the UAE. The bank offers retail, corporate, SME, and digital banking services through a nationwide network and advanced digital platforms and has achieved strong financial growth while earning industry recognition for digital innovation, customer service, and financial inclusion.

Today, the bank uses Temenos Core across its Retail, Corporate, SME, and institutional client segments. That foundation is now being strengthened with payments innovation.

In 2025, ADCB Egypt became the first bank in Egypt to go live with Temenos Payments for SWIFT payments, and fully compliant with ISO 20022 / SWIFT MX messaging standards.

What makes this deployment stand out is its native integration. ADCB implemented the new messaging standard directly within its system. By removing middleware and workarounds, the bank can now work directly with structured, source-level data.

“This approach gives us full data integrity and no limitations,” Ihab Elswerkey CEO & Managing Director at ADCB Egypt explained. “It’s more than compliance; it’s the smart way to scale, in line with our 5-year growth strategy.

By going native from day one, the bank avoids inefficiencies and translation risks, gaining agility as regulations evolve. It’s a bold move that sets the bank apart from competitors still working through interim solutions.

The implementation, led by ITSS with support from Temenos and ADCB’s internal PMO, followed a structured rollout. ADCB Egypt prioritized cross-border payments. The setup included five full environments spanning development, UAT, pre-production (x2), and production.

“ITSS played a critical role,” Ihab said. “They brought deep product knowledge and helped us set up a robust environment across dev, UAT, and production. Their collaboration with our team was excellent.”

ITSS also reflected on the strength of the partnership. “ADCB Egypt had a clear vision for compliance and scalability,” said Patrick Jaccoud, CEO, ITSS. “Our role was to bring deep expertise in Temenos Payments and ensure that the implementation was seamless, modular, and future proof. This project proves what’s possible when the client, partner, and vendor work as one team.”

The shift from Temenos’ previous module to Temenos Payments Hub delivered immediate benefits. ADCB Egypt achieved stronger straight-through processing, significantly reduced manual intervention, and now responds to regulatory changes faster and more cleanly. Payment flows are now centrally orchestrated, improving both visibility and control.

ADCB Egypt ran a formal evaluation process, comparing Temenos Payments with other global vendors. TPH stood out for its native ISO 20022 support, seamless compatibility with the bank’s existing Temenos Core platform, and a scalable architecture that required minimal customization. ADCB also took the opportunity to deploy Temenos Treasury Front Office (TFO), which it completed in June 2024.

ADCB Egypt required a platform that didn’t need heavy customization. Temenos Payments absorbed the business needs with minimal rework, presenting a major advantage.

With Phase 1 now live, ADCB Egypt is planning its next move: extending Temenos Payments to handle other payment schemes (ACH, RTGS, and instant payments), all under a single orchestration layer. The bank is also expanding its use of analytics, AI, and real-time insights – critical tools in its strategy to attract a new generation of digital-first customers with faster, smarter, and more responsive banking experiences.

For ADCB Egypt, this is about building a platform that grows with the bank, a strategic move to continuously modernize its infrastructure and ensure its readiness for the future.

Since go-live, BNI Madagascar has reported strong user adoption and positive customer feedback, particularly regarding the app’s intuitive design and ease of use.

By leveraging Temenos Digital Banking, BNI has reinforced its ability to deliver secure, personalized and accessible services across Madagascar, further strengthening its market position as a digital leader.

Cairo Amman Bank (CAB) has been a leading financial institution in Jordan and Palestine since 1960. It serves a diverse customer base through three distinct segments, LINC (a youth-focused digital brand for ages 18-40), SIGNATURE (elite individuals and corporate clients), and the mass market operating under the CAB brand.

In Jordan, LINC is deeply embedded in university life through co-branded prepaid student ID cards, while SIGNATURE and CAB serve the bank’s premium and broad-based customer segments.

By 2025, CAB reached a critical juncture. Although Temenos Core had been fully rolled out in 2012, following a period of coexistence with a legacy system, the core platform had not been upgraded in more than a decade, limiting CAB’s ambitions that need additional scalability and innovation.

“We knew we couldn’t scale the way we wanted,” said Rami Maayah, Group CIO. ” Our previous setup demanded too many resources just to keep things running. It was clearly time for a meaningful step forward.”

Given the complexity of the previous setup, an upgrade in 2017 wasn’t finished at the time, so CAB later adopted a more structured approach and launched a full‑scope technical transformation in Jordan and Bahrain. The bank went live successfully on 12 October 2025, marking a major milestone in its modernization journey.

The shift was significant: CAB migrated from IBM DB2 to Oracle and replaced outdated JBoss middleware with IBM Liberty, eliminating years of compensating controls required to manage security risks. “The upgrade removed vulnerabilities we couldn’t address before due to database and middleware limitations,” Rami explained. “We now have a stable, modern, and secure technology stack.”

The Jordan upgrade took a little over a year, reflecting the complexity of the transformation. Now live, CAB has eliminated costly extended support contracts, significantly improving cost efficiency.

The previous environment required additional maintenance, while the new subscription model delivers much greater value for only a slight increase in investment.

With Jordan and Bahrain now on a modern release, CAB has defined a clear three-phase strategy:

• Technical Upgrade – Move the remaining entities to a modern release, supported by Temenos’ always upgradable platform.
• Back-to-Core Assessment – Remove ~2,900 local customizations and realign with an adopt approach to consume rich and standard functionality.
• Functional Upgrade – Build on a clean core to deploy new digital services and innovation.

CAB is also applying the same approach to its Palestine operations, with the upgrade targeted for completion by mid-2026. Unlike Jordan, the Palestine environment still runs on Jbase, a file-based system, adding complexity.

“We took the hard road first in Jordan,” Rami noted. “CAB Palestine will benefit directly from those lessons, allowing us to move faster and more efficiently.”

CAB also completed its upgrade of the Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation (FCM) suite in December 2024, in line with a mandate from the Central Bank of Jordan. The bank uses the full suite of FCM modules, including screening, profiling, and KYC+.

With VBOT implemented, false positives dropped by 40–50%, significantly reducing manual review effort and compliance overhead.

Looking ahead, CAB plans to deploy Temenos AI in the near future, leveraging subscription-based licensing secured during contract renewal. This AI-driven capability is expected to further enhance screening accuracy and operational efficiency.

Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank) is one of Vietnam’s largest private banks, serving over 30 million customers across retail and corporate banking. The bank is a leader in digital innovation, having launched multiple digital brands including NEO, NEOBiz, UBank, Cake. To serve millions more customers with speed and reliability, VPBank recognized that its core banking platform had to evolve – to be faster, smarter, and more scalable.

VPBank had been using Temenos Core Banking since 2006. As it has grown, it has retained this core, while upgrading to new releases.

“We always need to improve our speed to market and agility,” said Augustine Wong Kok Seng, former CIO at VPBank. “Digital banks move fast, and if we want to stay competitive, we need to keep our core platform at the cutting edge.”

More importantly, many of the alternative platforms required specialized business analyst skills that were hard to source in emerging markets like Vietnam.

VPBank committed to upgrading its Temenos core banking, while shifting to a hybrid architecture using Red Hat OpenShift. The bank partnered with Systems Limited, with proven expertise in deploying Red Hat OpenShift for core banking on-premise. Red Hat was instrumental in helping containerise VPBank’s core banking system. While the core continues to run on-premise in a private cloud, AWS supported the broader hybrid architecture and testing environments, providing flexibility as the bank plans for future innovations.

This wasn’t a routine upgrade. It was one of the largest and most complex core banking transformations in the country. It involved migrating more than 18 million accounts and 77 terabytes of data, all within a 24-hour go-live window.

Key to success was VPBank’s decision to run the upgrade using disaster recovery (DR) mode to avoid impacting customer service. For most of the weekend, customers continued transacting as usual, with only a brief three-hour switchover window when systems were unavailable.

“With this modernisation, VPBank gains the ability to orchestrate workloads at scale, streamline deployments, and maintain high availability. These are critical capabilities for supporting millions of customers while driving continuous innovation,” said Dao Hoang Giang (Jane), Country Manager, Red Hat Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos & Myanmar.

The technology upgrade is about more than just scale. It’s also enabling inclusion.

Vietnam has a population of over 100 million, but only around 30 million are currently banked. VPBank is on a mission to change that. “Our full name – Vietnam Prosperity Bank – says it all,” Augustine said. “We’re here to build an inclusive financial society. That requires trust, and trust is built on stable, scalable systems.”

Raiffeisen Bank dd Bosna i Hercegovina (RBBH) has been a cornerstone of the country’s financial sector since 2000. As the second-largest bank in the market, it serves over half a million individual customers and 50,000 business clients ranging from micro-enterprises to large corporations. The bank operates as part of the broader Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) network, benefiting from both local market expertise and international economies of scale.

The bank has built a reputation for stability and customer service. But in an increasingly digital world, the bank recognized that maintaining its competitive edge would require more than traditional banking approaches.

The challenge facing RBBH was both immediate and strategic. Customer behaviour was shifting rapidly, and their expectations were accelerating beyond the bank’s capability to develop. “The demand for digital services is increasing, and we cannot afford to fall behind,” explained Kreshnik Halili, the bank’s CIO/COO. The bank’s legacy systems, built over many years, had become a constraint rather than an enabler.

Basic processes such as opening a current account were complex and lengthy, creating workload for staff and delays for customers. Integration with new digital channels was limited; and the speed required to compete in today’s market was simply not achievable.
“We couldn’t settle for small enhancements around the edges,” said Kreshnik. “We needed a complete overhaul of our technology.”

RBBH’s selection process balanced their immediate needs with a longer-term view. The bank evaluated multiple vendors while also examining implementations within sister banks across the RBI banking group.

Temenos emerged as the clear choice for several compelling reasons, not least because Temenos Core was already live in other RBI subsidiaries, including Kosovo, Slovakia, and Poland. “This wasn’t just a local technology project; it was a move to ensure strategic alignment and standardization across the group.”

The decision was reinforced by Temenos’ broad customer base and partner network. “Implementing a core banking system is not an easy project. Finding companies that have successfully put systems into production meant a lot to us.”

There was also a practical element to this, added Kreshnik. “It gave us confidence that during project implementation, we would have many doors to knock on if we needed support or consultation.”

Rather than opting for a ‘big bang’ approach RBBH undertook a phased go-live, starting with its core retail products: current accounts, bundles, and overdrafts. Deposits and lending will be the focus of subsequent phases, followed by its business accounts.

The implementation was led by Tech Mahindra, supported by Temenos and RBBH’s own internal team, already certified in Temenos delivery. “Mature technology and a mature team; both are needed for success,” advised Kreshnik.

Organisation is also key, he added. “We had clear roles, shared priorities, and strong communication across all three teams. That’s what made the difference.”

By adhering closely to out-of-the-box functionality and standard processes, the team minimized customization and reduced the risk of complexity creeping in mid-project.

A key enabler was Red Hat OpenShift, which allowed the deployment of Temenos in a containerized, cloud-ready environment. “When the timing is right from the regulatory point of view, our technology is ready to be migrated from on-premises to the cloud.”

It did not take long for the bank to see the benefits of their investment. Internal users noticed faster response times and better integration between functions. Operational simplicity followed. Previously, it relied on three to four different systems to originate products. These were replaced with a unified, streamlined workflow within Temenos Core. As a result, new products could be created in days, rather than weeks.

One of the early priorities post-go-live was the launch of new, tailored banking packages aimed at attracting new-to-bank customers. With Temenos Core, the team was able to model and launch these products quickly and with minimal technical intervention.

“Designing tailored packages for acquisition is a key lever for our growth,” Kreshnik said. “We now move from concept to launch far faster than before.”

With the consolidation of product configuration, pricing, and lifecycle management, manual reconciliation and task duplication has been minimized. For branch teams and call center agents, this has meant better visibility, fewer systems to navigate, and improved service consistency.

“We’ve gone from managing products across multiple systems to orchestrating everything through a single core. It’s faster for our teams, and that means it’s better for our customers.”

One of the biggest enhancements was the implementation of Temenos Data Hub, which now acts as a central data layer. It enables real-time streaming to digital channels, supports faster insights, and lays the groundwork for AI-based personalization.

“We’re actively monitoring AI development and testing small proof of concepts,” explained Kreshnik. “TDH provides capabilities that we believe will contribute to this strategy and opportunities when they become available.”

The bank plans to expand Temenos Core and TDH across more product lines as it continues to drive digital rollouts, fintech integrations, and open banking services.

“The market is moving fast, especially around digital expectations and embedded finance. Now we have a core that can keep up.”

The team is already scoping the next phases, which will bring Temenos into lending and card systems. Meanwhile, APIs are being opened up to enable new partnerships and mobile experiences.

A key advantage of the transformation is how it brings regional alignment with local innovation. As more RBI entities adopt the Temenos platform, knowledge and solutions can be shared across borders.

Bank NXT, a leading provider of integrated banking solutions in Egypt, has set its sights on becoming one of the country’s top ten banks in terms of Return on Equity (ROE) and Return on Assets (ROA). The bank is taking a bold, tech-forward approach, with a strong focus on flexibility, speed, and delivering differentiated services across both retail and corporate segments. With people at the core of its transformation journey, Bank NXT continues to introduce innovative solutions designed to meet evolving market expectations.

Before the bank’s modernization journey, launching new products required significant development efforts, extensive testing, and multiple workarounds even for basic features. Simple changes involved custom development and lengthy testing cycles, often resulting in months of delay.

“As part of our earlier processes, we had to build everything from validations and parameters to compliance logic. Even the smallest updates required considerable effort,” explained Mohamed Hussain.

The need for transformation became increasingly urgent due to growing pressure from tech-savvy customers, emerging fintech competition, and heightened regulatory requirements. A modern core banking system and a more agile, scalable payment infrastructure were essential to support the bank’s evolving ambitions.

Marking a significant milestone in the Egyptian banking sector, Bank NXT became the first institution in the country to implement Temenos Payments. This was deployed in tandem with Temenos Core and additional modules, including Trade Finance, Treasury, and Transaction Recycler. To enable seamless integration, the bank also adopted IRIS, Temenos’ API-ready integration framework.

“Temenos Payments changed everything for us,” said Mohamed Hussain. “We can now launch new channels or respond to central bank mandates within days rather than months. Our users have seen the speed and flexibility of the system and they now expect us to move faster.”

Bank NXT’s payment channels, including ACH, SWIFT, and IPN, have been unified under a single orchestration layer, granting the bank full control over routing, prioritization, and compliance. This modular, API-enabled infrastructure is powering a new wave of services, such as instant salary transfers and faster customer payments.

This agility extends to compliance, as Mohamed explained: “We’re now operating with low-code, almost no-code platforms. So when new regulatory requirements are introduced by the central bank, we can implement updates within days and move quickly to market.”

The transformation has delivered tangible, measurable impact across all areas of the bank’s operations. Product development cycles are now 80% faster, while manual intervention has decreased by 90%, as teams leverage automated repair queues and warehouse views, significantly reducing delays and enhancing operational efficiency. Additionally, transaction processing volumes have increased by 120%, supported by a steady rise in the bank’s straight-through processing (STP) rate.

“Our STP rate has reached 75%, and we continue to see opportunities for further improvement,” noted Mohamed Hussain. “We’re now processing payments with greater accuracy, minimal rework, and higher levels of customer satisfaction.”

Bank NXT selected Temenos following a thorough competitive evaluation not solely for its technology, but for its proven track record in the Egyptian market and its reputation for delivering scalable, flexible solutions.

“Temenos had the proof,” stated Mohamed Hussain. “We were looking for a true partner, not just a provider – someone who could deliver with quality and remain committed for the long-term partner.”

Temenos’ delivery approach, supported by both local and global partners, ensured a high-quality implementation that aligned seamlessly with Bank NXT’s strategic objectives. The adoption of the IRIS integration platform enabled rapid deployment without the need for extensive custom development, ensuring the system remains agile and ready for future growth.

With its core and payments systems fully transformed, Bank NXT is now focused on leveraging artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to drive deeper personalization, enhance decision-making, and elevate the overall customer experience.

“AI represents the future of banking,” said Mohamed Hussain. “To position ourselves as the boutique bank of choice, our decisions must be driven by data, not assumptions. That’s how we will continue to lead.”

As the first bank in Egypt to modernize its payments infrastructure at this scale, Bank NXT is not merely adapting to change– it is setting a new standard for what modern, agile, and customer-centric banking should be.

“Our partnership with Temenos goes beyond deploying advanced technology,” Mohamed concluded. “It is rooted in a well-defined strategy. This is not a short-term upgrade, but a long-term alliance focused on sustainable growth.”

EQ Bank launched in 2016 with a groundbreaking vision. As one of the first digital-only banks in Canada, the bank aims to reimagine how customers interact with their financial services provider, offering a smarter and more flexible alternative to the complexity and hassle of traditional banking. In less than a decade it has grown to service half-a-million consumers, and has recently expanded into business banking. 

Daniel Broten, SVP and Head of EQ Bank, explained: “We’re on a mission to change the status quo, with banking services that enrich the lives of our customers. As a digital-only bank, we have a major advantage over traditional banks, as we don’t have to maintain branches and therefore have more resources available to provide customer-centric services at the best possible rates.”

Development speed has been one benefit of its move to cloud. “Ten years ago, we were releasing new features about every two months. Last year, we got that up to 30 every month, and this year, we peaked at 50 per month.”

With that capability, EQ Bank is now rolling out some of the most innovative digital banking services available in Canada. In the near-term, it will publicly launch its first fully digital business account, designed to meet the unique needs of Canadian small business owners, with open banking and real-time payments in scope.

And as part of its inclusion policy, it has created customized onboarding journeys to help indigenous Canadians to access financial services. Similarly, EQ Bank has launched a new low-cost, multi-currency money transfer service through an integration with leading payments provider Wise.

Daniel continued: “Setting up the integration between Temenos Core Banking and Wise was very simple. We quickly and efficiently connected all the debit, credits and payment types needed to allow our customers to make transactions. And we could do this without having to recode any APIs. Using the Temenos SaaS has made it easy for our teams to design, develop and launch new products.”

More recently, it has developed the ‘TDH-EQB Fabric’ environment, an innovative solution enabling near real-time data access within the Temenos Data Hub. The initiative (a collaboration between EQ Bank, Temenos and Microsoft) has already had a profound impact by enabling access to key transactional data within less than 60 seconds; reducing load on the live Temenos Core database by offloading queries for historic and archived transaction data; accelerating operational decision-making by enabling near real-time intraday reporting; and establishing a scalable pipeline to support regulatory reporting.

Daniel commented: “The TDH-EQB Fabric is empowering EQ Bank with faster insights, improved system performance, and a more agile digital ecosystem—all crucial for enhancing the experience we give customers and meeting our regulatory obligations.” 

These new capabilities are now powering the bank’s exploration into AI. For Daniel, AI is a natural extension of what the bank has been focussed on since it launched. “We always strive to create highly personalised experiences for each customer. That’s important at the onboarding stage for a new customer, when you really have to build for trust. The more we can show we know about them as a person, the more intimate and trusting the experience for them. The combination of good data and AI are a massive opportunity to create these moments.”

The innovative new services launched by EQ Bank have gone down extremely well with consumers. So much so EQ Bank has been named to the prestigious World’s Best Banks list by Forbes Magazine for five consecutive years.

MIDBANK is a 50-year-old financial institution based in Egypt. Originally founded in 1975 as a project finance and investment bank, it has evolved into a full-service commercial bank. With renewed leadership and a strategic vision launched in 2020, MIDBANK is repositioning itself as a progressive force in Egypt’s banking sector.

The results have been swift and significant. MIDBANK has the ability to work on reducing transaction processing times and annual saving in operational cost, and improving in customer satisfaction. Customers will benefit in the coming period from faster services, better product availability, and a more modern digital experience.

It is an artistic expression of how digital transformation reshapes end users’ financial lives—through cutting-edge technological innovations, accelerated service delivery, and enhanced user experience. It reflects the dual mission of driving operational efficiency and reinforcing regulatory compliance, as pivotal forces for sustainable economic growth and inclusive development, in alignment with Egypt Vision 2030 and the Central Bank of Egypt. Internally, automation has decreased the reliance on manual operations, freeing staff to focus on higher-value tasks. “The capacity in the system is so strong and robust that it helps us resolve things much more quickly,” Amr said.

That collaboration extended across stakeholders, from internal teams to third-party vendors. “With a project of this complexity, if one stakeholder fails, the whole thing can suffer. Temenos ensured we all stayed committed and aligned.” That ethos remains. “We have access to a 24/7 support service from Temenos. If we have any questions, we know we can go straight to the chat and there’ll be someone there to help us immediately,” Amr said.

● Successful self-delivered modernization of Temenos Core to R24.
● Transition to Temenos Application Framework Java (TAFJ) in parallel.
● ‘Close of Business’ (COB) processing time reduced from over 3.5 hours to under 2.
● 1.5 staff hours saved daily through automated member alerts.
● Faster third-party integration via regional APIs.

Integris Credit Union, with $1.5 billion in funds under administration, is located in northern British Columbia and has continually achieved results that rival much larger institutions. As a long-standing Temenos client Integris reaffirmed its digital-first vision in 2024 by executing one of its most ambitious initiatives to date: modernizing to the latest Temenos Core version, transitioning from TAFC (Temenos Application Framework C) to TAFJ (Temenos Application Framework Java), and integrating Temenos Payments Hub (TPH) into its operations.

Behind these moves was the risk of inaction. As new technologies and disruptors continue to reshape the Canadian financial landscape, Integris understood it needed to move with the times; a digital-first, mobile-first approach.

And they needed it fast. “Time was of the essence,” said Jeff Anderson, VP Information Technology at Integris. “We had one shot to get it right.”

Despite the project’s scale, Jeff assembled a lean, focused team—just himself, two developers, a project manager, and a small group of testers. The decision to self-deliver allowed for total control and discipline. “You have to guard the scope of the upgrade. Don’t let it change,” Jeff emphasized. Integris also chose to continue running its systems on-premises—a rarity in today’s market but a deliberate decision to maintain operational control.

Temenos’ flexibility played a key role in this success.

With close support from Temenos and a clear strategy: move fast, minimize customizations, and align with out-of-the-box functionality—the team stayed focused on delivering a clean, agile result. “We didn’t want to carry legacy complexity forward,” Jeff said. “We wanted to come out the other side with agility, not technical debt.” The upgrade has given Integris improved operational control, a more consolidated view of its business, and a foundation for next-generation digital capabilities.

Integris has been using Temenos Payments Hub (TPH) for several years to support e-transfers and ISO 20022-compliant messaging. The system has proved highly reliable, requiring little maintenance once configured. That gave Jeff and his team less thing to focus on.

“Through the recent upgrade, it didn’t require any changes. We were able to take it offline briefly and bring it back online without issue. That made a complex project simpler and less risky.”

The upgrade was completed in April 2025, and the impact was clear from day one. ‘Close of Business’ (COB) processing times dropped from over 3.5 hours to under 2. Staff gained back 1.5 hours per day through automated member notifications, which reduced the need for manual calls or emails. And audit logs improved dramatically, helping the team identify and resolve issues faster.

Even more significant was the new ability to accelerate product launches. Pre-built configurations and parameterization has made it easier to roll out services faster, with fewer technical dependencies.

Beyond these immediate wins, the upgrade has set Integris up for the future. Jeff explained the most valuable of these would be the number of APIs they can now access. “We can increase the efficiency of integrating with third parties. It’s going to be super-valuable.” His team has wasted no time in leveraging that new capability. Just a week after the upgrade, Jeff and his team implemented an alerting system for accounts going into overdraft —soon to be a legislative requirement in Canada—putting Integris ahead of the regulators. “We implemented that by taking some events happening on a daily basis within Temenos Core Banking and could pipe it into some other systems to automatically send alerts, which is a real strength of Temenos Core Banking,” said Jeff. They are also already working on integrations for open banking, payment rails, and mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. Temenos Payments Hub gives the institution a modern foundation to support this roadmap.

“The upgrade isn’t the finish line, it’s the starting point,” said Jeff. “We’ve now got the architecture to compete with fintechs and deliver services at speed.” Crucially, the transition also changed how the business and technology teams work together. With the product now driving processes (rather than the other way around), collaboration is tighter, and delivery is faster.

As a relatively small player in the market, the scale and speed of Integris’ modernization is even more remarkable. But having worked with Temenos for years, Jeff was confident it could be achieved “The world is full of people who want to tell you that what you’re trying to do is impossible. But if you have the right people and the right technology, anything is possible.” Ultimately, it came down to trust.

• One of the first banks in Malta to go live with SEPA Instant Payments.
• Transaction times reduced to seconds, with 24/7 availability.
• Compliance with SWIFT CBPR+ and TIPS, the European Central Bank’s instant payment settlement platform.

IIG Bank (Malta) Ltd., established in 2010, is a fully licensed credit institution regulated by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA). The bank specializes in structured, supply chain trade finance promoting international trade and commodity finance in emerging markets. Despite having a team of fewer than 50 employees and a small IT department, it ranks as the 13th largest bank in Malta.

Al Ziyani understood that proactive innovation alone would not be enough. The bank would also need to keep pace with a continually evolving regulatory climate, to ensure any new products and features were compliant. And in 2024 and 2025, he was proven right, as IIG faced a significant challenge in adopting the upcoming SWIFT CBPR+ and SEPA Instant Payments regulations. As the bank’s operations evolved, so did its technology needs. To support future growth and ensure compliance with evolving regulations, the bank recognized the importance of a modern payment’s infrastructure, one that offers greater automation, interoperability, and scalability.

But the bank’s ambitions extend beyond Malta. “We have a global outlook,” said Heytem Al Ziyani, Head of IT at IIG Bank. “We aim to support customers and provide financial services wherever they are. “Digital is core to this vision”; but an outdated core banking system proved an obstacle to progress. “We see lots of opportunities to improve and to provide better services to our clients; but without the right technology in place, they can only be ideas.” The Bank took a bold step forward in 2017 when it adopted Temenos as its core banking system and partnered with Stoics IT for the first time for implementation.

IIG Bank turned to Temenos a trusted partner since 2017, and implementation specialists Stoics IT, recently acquired by Bahwan CyberTek (BCT), to design and execute a fast-track implementation plan. “As a small team, we work closely and collaboratively with our partners,” said Al Ziyani.  “So, getting the right fit – not just the technology, but crucially the right team too – is always a big decision for us. We ask questions: Do we fully understand the scope of these new regulations? How will they impact our systems and the services we deliver to our customers? And what actions do we need to take?”

These were the key topics to focus on and to address by the bank, Temenos and BCT. By bringing all parties together from the outset, the bank ensured alignment and collaboration throughout every phase of the project. This comprehensive coordination is essential in any modernization effort, enabling the team to move swiftly and effectively. “Precision and efficiency are key, we focus on getting every step right the first time,” said Al Ziyani.

And they were. In just six months, the bank upgraded its Temenos core banking system to R24 AMR release and implemented the instant payment module TIPS (the European Central Bank’s instant payment settlement platform) within its existing Temenos Payments Hub (TPH) environment. This was followed by the successful finalisation of SWIFT CBPR+.

Go-lives were achieved in quick succession: the Temenos core banking system upgrade in December 2024, instant payments in January 2025, and SWIFT CBPR+ in June 2025. “We delivered major go-lives within months. For a financial institution with a lean but well-rounded team across all departments, this was a significant achievement.”

The implementation of TPH and the system upgrade to R24 AMR release has brought full SEPA compliance, enabling seamless cross-border transactions across Europe. The bank can now process SEPA transactions in less than 10 seconds, with 24/7 availability. All transactions are automatically screened and reconciled, with no manual intervention required. Additionally, the move to the Temenos core banking system means the bank can integrate with other European digital platforms, and EU customers can now open accounts and manage transactions entirely online from anywhere in the EU.

“Imagine a German depositor opening a term deposit at a Maltese bank, with no branch presence in Germany, acting completely online, no manual intervention and no delays. That’s the power of this transformation,” Al Ziyani added. “The number of requests we now receive online to open accounts versus the traditional method of visiting our Malta branch… it’s incredible.”

Platform stability and performance have also improved, supporting the bank’s growing digital network and reducing reliance on manual intervention.

IIG Bank chose to expand with Temenos because of the platform’s ability to scale through automation and integrations, ensuring consistency with their lean operating structure.

The relationship goes beyond the product. Market expertise and a proactive approach during exchanges, especially when seeking solutions to the evolving requirement to remain compliant and meet regulatory expectations, are key ingredients of how Temenos continues to support its clients. “2024 and 2025 brought major changes in our sector. Temenos was with us for every step, helping us plan, adapt, and deploy effectively and on time,” Al Ziyani explained.

With the upgrading of the core and the payments layers, IIG is exploring automation in areas such as customer onboarding and fraud detection. Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation (FCM) already plays a central role in AML and transaction screening, and AI is firmly on the roadmap for future capabilities.