Sector: Corporate & Commercial Banking
Integris Credit Union
Modernizing with purpose and discipline
British Columbia, Canada
At a Glance
● 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.”
On their own terms
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.
That flexibility in how we wanted to manage the upgrade is not something that you can do with other vendors. The people that you choose to either partner with—like Temenos, professional services or third-party partners—or your internal staff, they have to be excellent. You cannot do an upgrade on time, on budget without great people.”
– Jeff Anderson, VP Information Technology at Integris
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.
Zero payments downtime
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.”
Immediate results
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.
We saw improvements immediately after go-live. The system’s responsiveness, the logging, the automation, it all worked.”
– Jeff Anderson, VP Information Technology at Integris
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.
Set for future success
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.
History of trust
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.
We knew the platform. We trusted it. And we knew we had the right people on both sides to make it work. By staying true to the core product and avoiding unnecessary complexity, Integris has laid the foundation for future innovation, scalability, and member-centric service. We’ve got a solution that can move at the pace we want, and scale as we grow, to wherever our members need us to be next.”
– Jeff Anderson, VP Information Technology at Integris
IIG Bank (Malta) Ltd
Scaling Instant Payments with a lean, well-rounded, and efficient team.
St. Julian’s, Malta
At a Glance
• 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.
Regulation – the catalyst for change
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.
“We needed a platform that would adapt to changing regulation, able to scale with us, and connect seamlessly with the outside world.”
– Heytem Al Ziyani, Head of IT at IIG Bank
A six-month sprint to instant payments
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.”
“Deep expertise and strong project discipline are always essential in these kinds of projects. With the right people in place and a clear plan, progress is achieved even better than in larger teams that are less structured. This was especially true at IIG Bank, where strong internal team alignment, together with a close partnership with Temenos and BCT, played a key role in the project’s success.”
– Madhan Visvanathan – Head of Temenos Practice at BCT
Real-time payments, real business impact
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.
Flexibility – the competitive edge
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.
“In modern banking, you need to be able to connect to a network of solutions. The strength of Temenos is its adaptability. We can integrate with any platform, comply with new regulations, and roll out new services quickly.”
– Heytem Al Ziyani, Head of IT at IIG Bank
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.
A smarter future
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.
“Our future is digital. And with Temenos, we have the platform and the partner to keep evolving, while maintaining the focused, lean operating model that we value.”
– Heytem Al Ziyani, Head of IT at IIG Bank
We partnered successfully with:
BCT is an exclusive sales and delivery partner for all Temenos products and solutions in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan.
ABN AMRO
Unifying around a single platform to enable innovation and growth
Amsterdam, Netherlands
ABN AMRO
Unifying around a single platform to enable innovation and growth
Amsterdam, Netherlands
ABN AMRO
Unifying around a single platform to enable innovation and growth
Amsterdam, Netherlands
At a Glance
- Temenos Wealth has created efficiency improvements to portfolio management, client reporting, and digital front-end tooling
- Single code base enables multiple executions from a single development environment
- TPH is a high-performing payment engine and contributing to a significant increase in volume capability
- Temenos Continuous Deployment enables overnight regression for all the functional areas, hitting a 100% pass rate with a single touch
ABN AMRO is one of the leading banks in the Netherlands with a significant international presence. With its roots going back 200 years, the Dutch financial services institution today provides banking services to millions of individuals and businesses, with a primary focus on the Netherlands and Northwest Europe. The bank is also a global leader in clearing.
The institution offers a range of products and services – including business loans, mortgages, savings, investment products, and payment services – across three divisions: personal and business banking, wealth management, and corporate banking.
Its strategy for growth is centered around three key pillars; customer experience, sustainability, and future-proof banking. These provide the foundation for bank’s mission to provide “Banking for better, for generations to come”, based on a fundamental vision of “becoming a personal bank in the digital age for the resourceful and ambitious”.
Strength in collaboration
ABN AMRO’s partnership with Temenos has been important to delivering on this vision. The journey with Temenos began almost two decades ago, when ABN AMRO started leveraging Temenos Wealth Front Office (previously ‘Triple A’) to update its legacy private banking environment. This collaboration has since expanded with Temenos core banking for its corporate and private banking business and continued further with the co-development of Temenos Payments Hub. The introduction of Temenos Continuous Deployment (TCD) running on the Temenos SaaS is the partnership’s most recent milestone.
Bas van As, ABN AMRO’s Head of International Core Banking, highlights that the benefit of this long-term partnership has been “to bring consistency and standardization to our technology stack and so make it easier to innovate and modernize.”
World class wealth management
Temenos Wealth Front Office, which is deployed in the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Belgium, has resulted in efficiency improvements to portfolio management, client reporting, and digital front-end tooling. The bank has also leveraged the sustainability insights made available from the solution to improve the guidance given by its relationship managers and advisors to clients.
Moreover, by using the same code base across its operations, the bank has been able to create multiple executions from a single development environment. It has been putting this capability to good use. Just recently, in Germany, the bank rolled out the Discretionary Portfolio Management (DPM) and has scheduled advisory services to go live in the near future.
Marnix Tummers, the bank’s IT Director of Wealth Management, explains that this single code base has also achieved efficiencies in other areas, such as lifecycle management, information security, and regulatory compliance. On the latter, he says: “Regulations and standards are forever evolving, within a jurisdiction and also between them. Temenos embeds these changes to its software, which empowers us to remain adaptable in fulfilling our compliance obligations in all our markets.” And on top of increased efficiency, scalability improves as well.
“Technology allows ABN AMRO to innovate quickly by bringing new features to clients and simultaneously strengthen regulatory compliance, which is also at the heart of what Temenos is striving for.”
Marnix Tummers, IT Director of Wealth Management at ABN AMRO
Composability at the core
Temenos core banking provides a stable platform that runs across multiple business lines in multiple countries and markets, all from a single instance, which has become integral to the bank’s efficiency and performance goals. Initially, it was deployed in international corporate business and later in European corporate and private banking operations.
These advancements reflect ABN AMRO’s ongoing commitment to simplicity, or what Bas calls ‘hygiene’. “Our solutions need to be available, safe, and compliant. So, it remains incredibly important that we have a stable and reliable core banking system, because it also allows us to focus on managing our legacy technology effectively,” says Bas.
Marnix echoes those sentiments, pointing out that
“The Temenos platform’s design—a single codebase, API architecture, and suite of pre-integrated modules—delivers operational efficiencies and scalability, with the flexibility needed to tailor solutions and products for individual countries.”
Marnix Tummers, IT Director of Wealth Management at ABN AMRO
Adoption and integration of new capabilities is far easier, including access to third-party providers via the Temenos Exchange. In turn, it allows the bank to decouple outdated systems.
Cutting edge payments
Building on the success of the core modernization, ABN AMRO also looked to enhance its payments processing capabilities. The bank co-developed Temenos Payments Hub (TPH) together with Temenos as a centralized, global payments hub. Fully integrated with Temenos core banking, the solution enables real-time cross-border and domestic payments, supports various payment types, and processes complex transactions.
TPH continues to keep ABN AMRO at the forefront of the payments industry; it is a high-performing payment engine and contributing to a significant increase in volume capability. As Bas explains, “Especially in the payment area, among others, we have tried to leverage the product as much as we possibly can, and that has been truly beneficial.”
Engine for innovation
In its latest collaboration with Temenos, ABN AMRO has introduced Temenos Continuous Deployment (TCD) running on Temenos SaaS. Its DevOps teams use TCD to provision test environments, automate test cycles, and accelerate the delivery of innovative new client services.
They are now able to run overnight regression for all the functional areas, hitting a 100% pass rate with a single touch. “It’s an incredible achievement,” notes Bas.
“TCD gives us an agility and speed to market that we didn’t have before, which brings a lot more opportunities into play.”
Bas van As, Head of International Core Banking at ABN AMRO
Pioneering AI-Driven Banking Transformation
ABN AMRO views AI as a powerful force for transformation, unlocking new opportunities across its banking operations. According to Marnix “AI not just as a trend, but a foundational technology that can enhance efficiency, drive innovation, and open up new possibilities for customer engagement and operational excellence.” In partnership with Temenos, which is actively embedding AI capabilities into both its Core and Wealth platforms, ABN AMRO will be leveraging these advancements to future-proof its systems and stay ahead in a rapidly evolving financial landscape. This strategic alignment ensures that AI is not only integrated into their technology stack but also plays a key role in shaping the bank’s long-term vision for smarter, more adaptive banking.
People-led partnership
The story of ABN AMRO’s nearly two decades of partnership with Temenos has been one of transformation and growth. It has also been characterized by both technology and people. “We talk about technology being innovative, but that’s only achieved by innovative thinkers. People who think ahead and predict what we’re going to need. That ability to stay on top of things—be it technical innovations or regulations—is a really valuable aspect of our partnership with Temenos,” says Bas.
“Temenos’ people are key. Its services, products, and account management teams have really been outstanding. They have enabled us to be very agile and deliver with speed and confidence. That was exemplified when the bank pivoted to concentrate its growth efforts on Northwest Europe, and the partnership allowed for a smooth adjustment. We were able to do that knowing that Temenos could flex with us and so minimize any disruption.”
Marnix Tummers, IT Director of Wealth Management at ABN AMRO
ABN AMRO
Unifying around a single platform to enable innovation and growth
Amsterdam, Netherlands
At a Glance
• Digital account openings have more than doubled, with mobile accounting for two-thirds
• Online contributing 8% of the bank’s account portfolio (increasing from the peer average of 5.75% pre-Temenos)
• 90% of applications have been decided automatically
• Over 60 hours of manual work saved through automations
• Application to decision journey cut from 15 mins to 2 mins
• Time to new account funding cut from 2-3 days to 4.5 mins
Founded in 1934, MidWestOne Bank is headquartered in Iowa City and operates over 50 branches in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Colorado. MidWestOne provides a range of services in the retail, small business, and commercial sectors. These include banking, credit, mortgages, and wealth management. It has 140,000 customers and $6.6bn in assets, making it the third-largest bank in Iowa.
Its aim is to be the preeminent relationship-driven community bank, where its expertise and proactive approach generate meaningful impact for its customers and stakeholders.
Details matter
For Heather DeStefano, the bank’s SVP and Director of Digital Innovation, trust is the vehicle for that growth. “We don’t want to be a transactional institution. We really want to help and guide people. How we get potential customers to understand that is a challenge for us.”
She explains it’s about a carefully balanced approach. “We really want to differentiate ourselves in the fact that we’re small enough to really care, but big enough to deliver all of your needs.”
In practical terms, it’s about “reaching our customers where they want us to, when they want us to,” she says. Technology can deliver convenience, but what’s key is to do that better than the competition.
It’s not just about having a pretty user interface anymore, innovation is really about looking at every aspect of the customer experience, from start to finish, and finding automations that make everything more seamless.”
Heather DeStefano, SVP and Director of Digital Innovation at MidWestOne Bank
This approach was evident when the bank recently launched its digital account opening platform. “We really looked at every detail—the experiences of our customers and our back office employees—to make everybody’s lives easier.”
One aspect of the new platform is to create profiles of valuable customers upfront and enable auto-decisioning for suitable applicants. “We’ve got the process down to just four minutes from application to funding,” says Heather. The technology is also applied to ‘unqualified’ applicants, so they don’t waste time online but can instead go into the branch.
100% Digital
MidWestOne’s new account opening solution has been built with Temenos’ Digital Onboarding product. Heather recalls: “When we started thinking about the customer experience, it became clear that our incumbent vendor was not the right partner for us.” Despite the ‘digital’ name tag, their solution required all applications to be individually reviewed, which meant lots of manual data inputting and checking. Decisions were then messaged to customers manually by a bank employee.
In contrast, Temenos’ proposal demonstrated the automation capabilities that MidWestOne was looking for: the flexibility to deploy an out-of-the-box solution with the controls to customize it; API connectivity with the bank’s existing core system; ease of use; and a team of people it trusted to deliver.
Usability was particularly important, explains Heather, because MidWestOne did not have an in-house development team to call on.
We had to have a system that our back office and operations teams could use. It’s been extremely easy for them to manage the applications and decisioning processes.”
Heather DeStefano, SVP and Director of Digital Innovation at MidWestOne Bank
No problem too small
The bank’s choice of Temenos has also been vindicated by the commitment of its support team. “I have direct lines of communication with their key people, who have encouraged me to reach out with questions. Or I can create a service ticket, and usually get a response back from them within an hour or two, even on low-priority tickets. They are very responsive.”
Fast improvement
The bank went live with Temenos Digital Onboarding as SaaS (running on AWS) in November 2023, with the support of RCG Global Services for the implementation. The returns have come quickly. Online account openings have almost tripled compared to pre-Temenos rates (without any marketing spend), and online account opening rates have surpassed their peer median groups. Two-thirds of these are performed on a mobile device, and over 90% of applications have been decided automatically. Heather estimates that automating Qualifile denials alone has saved the bank over 60 manhours since launch.
Speed is another benefit. On average, it takes applicants under two minutes to complete an application and receive a decision. Previously, applications would take closer to 20 minutes, with decisions coming one to two business days later. For approved customers, funding is now completed in just four and a half minutes, whereas in the past customers would have had to wait two to three days to complete the micro deposit verification process.
MidWestOne has also taken advantage of the platform’s vendor ecosystem by connecting to a third-party ID verification solution and integrating it into its onboarding experience.
Increased customer satisfaction has followed, both for those who open accounts online and in-store.
Open up the throttle
The bank is understandably keen to keep up this momentum. It has just started a project – with its implementation partner RCG – to incorporate banker referrals into the platform, which will help drive more customers online. And it plans to expand the range of products it offers, including high yield savings accounts and private wealth products.
Heather says they plan to add more products from different business lines as they mature with the platform.
Year one has proved what Temenos can help us deliver. We like it, our employees like it, and most importantly of all, our customers like it.”
Heather DeStefano, SVP and Director of Digital Innovation at MidWestOne Bank
We partnered successfully with
Amazon Web Services
Temenos is an AWS Partner. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, offering over 200 fully featured services from data centers globally.
RCG Global Services
CG Global Services leverages over 40 years of digital transformation expertise. Their highly skilled team empowers financial institutions by creating custom solutions and integrating fintechs
ABN AMRO
Unifying around a single platform to enable innovation and growth
Amsterdam, Netherlands
At a Glance
• Needed to upgrade 10yr old Temenos platform to support expansion
• Moving platform from on-premises to AWS cloud
• Agnostic architecture makes migration to new platform easier
• Expected operational efficiencies from automation of new platform
Ualá is an Argentine fintech, with a mission to improve financial inclusion across Latin America. Through a mobile application linked to an international Mastercard card, users can carry out a wide variety of financial transactions in an easy, secure, and transparent way. This includes money transfers, payments, credit and investment options, and access to a loyalty program. It also offers a range of solutions for businesses, such as payment terminals, payment links, and payment integration with online stores.
Ualá has more than seven million users in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. In 2021 it was valued at $2.45 billion, following the largest investment round ever secured by an Argentine company. It followed this up in 2023 by securing a full banking licence. Consequently, it wants to move away from a partnership model (where it licensed third-party products) to develop and launch its own banking services.
Plan for growth
For Ezequiel Mina, Chief Technology Officer at Ualá’s Mexican business, this progress mirrors the marketing strategy they are now employing. “A large portion of the Mexican population still can’t access a bank account or credit products. Our aim is to introduce these people to modern finance through a debit card or investment product first. They will then be able to build a credit history, and so unlock credit options.”
Innovation at the heart
While innovation is key to this vision, it does not represent a challenge in the way it would for traditional banks.
Ualá was born digitally and in the cloud, because from the start we wanted to do things better, faster, differently. So innovation is in our DNA. We are constantly trying to understand what our clients are looking for and solve it.”
Ezequiel Mina, Chief Technology Officer at Ualá’s Mexican business
Ualá’s track record speaks for itself. It was one of the first financial companies in Latin America to offer fully automated onboarding and a digital debit card, and to understand the benefits of building native mobile applications. “It’s all about simplicity,” says Ezequiel. “How can we make things as easy as possible for people? There are always improvements to be made. That’s why we are always innovating.”
Time to move
In May 2023, Ualá signalled its ambition to grow by acquiring ABC Capital, at the time one of Mexico’s prominent retail banks. The opportunity also presented a challenge, recalls Ezequiel. “ABC had been running a 10-year version of Temenos Core (R13), which wasn’t going to handle the transaction volume that we expect to see in the next five years.”
Hence Ualá is now in the process of upgrading to the R24 version of Temenos core banking, and also extending the platform to its established business in Mexico. It is also moving from on-premises to a cloud deployment, with AWS providing the infrastructure. Go-live is expected in 2025. Key to that decision was the agnostic architecture of the Temenos platform.
It makes it much easier to go from one deployment option to another. We don’t have to rewrite any code or manage complex data transfers.”
Ezequiel Mina, Chief Technology Officer at Ualá’s Mexican business
Unleashing the new
As well as improving transactional volumes, the upgraded platform provides a range of features that are not available from the legacy version. Automation is also a key stepchange that Ezequiel is looking forward to embracing.
We are going to use these capabilities to improve the usability of our app, and also deliver efficiencies in the operational side. It will be much easier for our engineering team to develop and deploy new features and updates. This will make us much more efficient in our use of resources.”
Ezequiel Mina, Chief Technology Officer at Ualá’s Mexican business
A shared future
For all the excitement around the potential of the platform upgrade, Ezequiel equals Temenos’ people just as much. “At Ualá, we say we don’t have vendors, just strategic partners. And with the core platform at the heart of our bank, Temenos is and will be one of our most important partners for the foreseeable future. They are already proving this in their support of the upgrade project.”
With Temenos people and technology and a shared appetite for innovation, we are building a bright future together for Latin Americans.”
Ezequiel Mina, Chief Technology Officer at Ualá’s Mexican business
ABN AMRO
Unifying around a single platform to enable innovation and growth
Amsterdam, Netherlands
At a Glance
• Enabled Bank Albilad to get up and running in 6 months
• Launch new products in 3 days
• Reduced COB activities from 4-6 hours to 1 hour
• New subsidiaries can be up and running in a day
• 71% of retail customers now join via digital channels
Established in 2005, Bank Albilad was the first bank in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to offer Shari’ah-compliant products. The bank provides services to retail, corporate, and SME clients with a vision to be the preferred choice for innovative Islamic banking solutions. Operating in a rapidly changing sector, Bank Albilad is embracing innovation to shape Saudi Arabia’s future banking landscape. Its strategy is built on a culture of proactively leading, collaborating, and – through its dedicated innovation center – co-creating innovative solutions tailored to meet the needs of customers and stakeholders. This commitment to driving change has propelled its success: It was one of the first banks to establish an open banking platform and has aligned itself with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 to create the best future for the country’s inhabitants.
Built on success
When it opened its doors back in 2005, Bank Albilad wanted to be at the forefront of Saudi Arabia’s digital transformation.
“There was a large proportion of people in the Kingdom with unmet banking needs,” says Ahmed AlZikan, Bank Albilad’s Chief Information Officer. “They were looking for Shari’ah-compliant products but couldn’t easily access a bank branch. We wanted to foster inclusivity and create a range of products that anyone in the country could access, no matter where they were located.”
To this end, the bank began looking for software that would enable it to establish a digital business from the outset. It sought a provider that would help it get up and running as quickly as possible and allow it to take Shari’ah compliant products to market easily.
Temenos emerged as the ideal partner.
We liked that Temenos offered a complete set of front-to-back capabilities that would support our end-to-end operations. Using its software, we would be able to launch new customer-facing products and services rapidly and also quickly adapt existing products to meet evolving customer needs.”
Ahmed AlZikan, Chief IT Governance Officer at Bank Albilad
Speed matters
Within just six months of selecting Temenos, Bank Albilad’s retail business was up and running. “It was incredibly fast,” Ahmed said. “We started with an earlier iteration of Temenos core banking and have since upgraded to a new version. We also added Temenos digital banking , which we believe has given us an edge in Islamic banking.”
Bank Albilad’s corporate arm is also built on Temenos core banking. “All of the product configuration for our business banking happens within the Temenos solution,” Ahmed explains. “Even though access management is carried out in the platform itself – it is easy to establish a hierarchy of accounting authorization.”
Bank Albilad felt the benefits of leveraging Temenos core banking right away. “Everything is low-code,” Ahmed says. “IT can now build a product in three days. It takes far longer for our other teams to develop their products using Java or .NET, for example.”
The bank’s teams can then configure these products directly within the platform, accelerating product innovation. “The beauty of Temenos core banking is that our teams can configure products without actually talking to IT,” Ahmed explains.
This isn’t the only way that Temenos core banking is helping Bank Albilad to work quickly. It has also dramatically reduced close of business (COB) time.
When we started our business, it would take around four to six hours for us to process the various events of the day. With the latest version of Temenos core banking, we can now do this in an hour.”
Ahmed AlZikan, Chief IT Governance Officer at Bank Albilad
A fast track for growth
These productivity benefits have scaled as Bank Albilad has diversified. “Temenos is helping us reduce the cost of IT and expedite our growth at the same time,” Ahmed says. “Today, all of the various subsidiaries within the bank are using Temenos. As we add more companies, we can get them onto the same system and have them up and running the next day. All it takes is a small configuration in accounting.”
These multiple companies leverage two data centers. “Because of our architecture, we have high availability,” Ahmed says. “We can switch from one data center to another in just a click, with zero issues and zero downtime.”
By operating so efficiently, Bank Albilad has grown from a three billion Saudi Arabian Riyal (SAR) business at its inception into the 17 billion SAR organization that it is today. In fact, today it is one of the top five banks in the country in terms of its product offerings across its corporate and retail businesses. Its commitment to digital is paying off, too: in 2023, it achieved a 14% year-on-year increase in mobile app users, with 71% of new retail customers joining digitally*.
We couldn’t have achieved this success and scalability without the stability and flexibility of the Temenos banking platform. It’s certainly a long-term relationship. Over the years, we’ve had so much support and commitment from the Temenos team. They have been so open to our requests; we cannot fault anything about the company.”
Ahmed AlZikan, Chief IT Governance Officer at Bank Albilad
A foundation for the future
Bank Albilad will continue to expand its use of Temenos solutions in the months and years to come. “We are aware that, to remain at the forefront of product innovation, we must continue to invest in our systems and processes,” Ahmed says. “That’s why we have renewed our contract with Temenos for 15 years.”
Overall, Ahmed wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Temenos to other banks like his: “In our opinion, it’s the easiest way to generate, deploy, and maintain products.”
Our investments in Temenos products have allowed us to transition into a modern, digital bank with improved speed, reliability, and flexibility. These performance benefits are key enablers of our success.”
Ahmed AlZikan, Chief IT Governance Officer at Bank Albilad
ABN AMRO
Unifying around a single platform to enable innovation and growth
Amsterdam, Netherlands
At a Glance
• Successful front-to-back ‘big bang’ implementation in Cyprus
• New product launch cycles halved to under one week
• 90% STP increased payment volumes to 120,000 per month
• False positives down to 6-8%
• 99.96% platform availability
Eurobank Group is a Greek banking group, based in Athens, Greece, with an international presence in Cyprus, Luxembourg, UK, and Bulgaria. It has 540 branches, around 10,500 employees, and total assets of $79.8bn. It is the 3rd largest bank in Greece and also in Cyprus, measured by assets, deposits, and loans. Its main strategic pillars are wealth asset management, international business banking, corporate investment banking, and bespoke banking for high-net worth individuals. These pillars vary from country to country.
Dual challenges, one solution
Chief among the bank’s challenges are regulation and digital innovation. On the former, an ever-changing, more demanding regulatory climate needs to be monitored and complied with. On the latter, the aim is to improve the customer experience by creating more self-service products and features, at a time when fintechs and neobanks are redefining customer-centric banking.
For Spyros Loizou, Group Head of International IT at Eurobank Cyprus, these are complimentary challenges. “Customers don’t just want convenience. They also need to feel that their funds, their investments, and their money, are safe and secure. So digital modernization is not just about how we create more convenient banking experiences, but also how we maintain responsible standards.”
Underpinning these dual challenges is technology, which the bank sees as both an enabler of innovation and a means to deliver its ESG commitments, explains Spyros. “Whatever we design and implement in the future has to be ESG compliant; but also, within the ESG spirit, meaning you design a process that has to be simple, and not burden the environment. That could mean going paperless with processes or minimizing the footprint of our IT operations. So we really approach ESG from a technology perspective.”
Time to change
Faced with these ambitions, Eurobank in Cyprus decided to evaluate its IT landscape. A closed architecture meant the bank relied heavily on the vendor to manage configurations and integrations, hampering innovation. This was compounded by the news that the vendor had stopped future investments in the product. “We were running legacy applications and systems that didn’t match the aspirations of the business. It wasn’t scalable, agile, flexible, or futureproof.”
That prompted the bank to search for a new core banking solution. From the outset, scale was an important selection criteria.
We wanted a technology partner with global reach, and market maturity, so we could leverage all the knowledge and best practice lessons from implementations that have been completed around the world. This is what led us to Temenos.”
Spyros Loizou, Group Head of International IT at Eurobank Cyprus
End-to-end advantage
Regulatory know-how was considered a key benefit of this scale. So too the breadth of the Temenos platform. “It has allowed us to continually enable new banking capabilities, without the complexities and costs from working with too many vendors.”
Eurobank Cyprus has made the most of this end-to-end platform, implementing core, digital, wealth management, Temenos Payments Hub (TPH), Financial Crime and Mitigation (FCM), trade finance, and analytics. The impact has been impressive, says Spyros. “Take TPH, for example. It has allowed us to simplify a previously complex operation of handling payments from different client types, whilst maintaining the flexibility to satisfy all the different nuances of each business line.”
Spyros also calls out the wealth management solution, from which the bank has launched a new digital offering.
We can now offer a full digital spectrum of order execution, and discretionary asset management advisory services, completely through the platform, with compliance checks built-in. Transactions that were previously being done manually, or semi-manually, are now automated and can be performed by our clients and relationship managers. That has created a strong competitive advantage for the bank.”
Spyros Loizou, Group Head of International IT at Eurobank Cyprus
This new digital wealth management service illustrates the speed with which Eurobank Cyprus can develop and launch new products. It has applied this capability across its portfolio, including investments, deposits, and lending products. “We can really go as fast as we want in a matter of days, we can launch a new product to the market, and be able to share with all our customer bases. That’s more than twice as fast as before.”
Big bang
Eurobank Cyprus has been live with the Temenos platform in its Cyprus business since April 2023; and for a “big bang implementation,” Spyros says it has been a smooth transition. “All the modules were new for all employees, but we’ve found them easy to learn and use. That empowers our people to create new products and proactively find new ways to do things more efficiently.”
The scope of the implementation – covering 85% of the bank’s IT in its Cyprus operation – felt like “waking up the next day with a brand new bank,” says Spyros. It was made more complex by starting three months prior to Covid and the workplace restrictions that ensued, which continued for 80% of the project.
Partnered by Temenos Implementation Services, the project involved not only migrating data from the old systems but also adapting the back-end procedures and operations so that they were aligned. This was a crucial aspect, recalls Spyros.
Today, our competitive advantage really comes from having a digital front end unified with a new state of the art infrastructure and working practices.”
Spyros Loizou, Group Head of International IT at Eurobank Cyprus
The big lesson he takes away from the implementation is the need for discipline, which points to having the right partner. “You need a lot of good governance. With a large-scale migration such as we did, it can be easy for the scope to creep even broader. It’s very important to stick to the plan, and only then allow yourself the appetite to add incrementally.”
First year returns
Just over a year after go-live, Eurobank Cyprus has already seen significant returns on its investment in Temenos. In payments it has been able to introduce STP (straight through processing), and now nine out of ten payments are fully automated, including compliance checks. Today it processes approximately 120,000 monthly payments in and out, across its product range, with the majority in their corporate, commercial, and international sectors. There has been good news too on false positives, which has come down to 6-8% as a result of the FCM module.
Spyros adds that it is also now much easier for the bank to implement new payment methods (e.g. SEPA and SWIFT) and configure these differently for its separate business lines and customer profiles, such as adjusting pricing rules and fee structures. “In combination with FCM, we can pretty much do whatever we want in order to balance operational efficiency, while ensuring compliance.”
Wealth management is another area where the bank has seen efficiencies. Prior to Temenos, every aspect – from order capture through to execution and settlement – was manual or semi-manual. STP has also been applied here, “which allows us to focus more on what really matters for the customer, such as providing good advice and investing in the manager relationship.”
Digital banking is a third area of improvement that Spyros calls out.
We have introduced new functionality in card management for individual and business customers, such as self-servicing. So now, our customers can activate a new card, block or unblock, and access various certificates of balance and interest, all online. Previously, all those tasks were manual.”
Spyros Loizou, Group Head of International IT at Eurobank Cyprus
Eurobank Cyprus has also taken advantage of the trade finance module from Temenos. “It marries really well with our corporate business because a lot of our clients that are trading across the globe need to guarantee their shipments with letters of credit.” Again, automation has been a big benefit and applied to tasks such as calculating commissions, and managing messages across the SWIFT network. “It is another example of how we have taken fully manual processes and achieved significant efficiencies with automation.”
An ambitious future
Going forward, the bank’s priority is to grow its retail business. “With the Temenos platform, we have the capabilities we need to achieve this.” As well as scalability, composability of services, and automation, it includes availability. Since going live, the bank has seen 99.96% availability from the platform, which is even more impressive when you consider the ‘big bang’ approach it took. This robustness is complemented by a support team from Temenos that “are knowledgeable, proactive, and solve issues fast”, says Spyros.
And compliance automations make the bank better placed to manage the rollout of a new raft of upcoming international regulations and standards, such as the introduction of the Swift MX ISO format in 2025.
With the successful implementation in its Cyprus business serving as a blueprint, Eurobank Cyprus has since enabled Temenos Wealth in Greece, and is now implementing it in Luxembourg.
Having Temenos as one of our most important strategic partners means we can plan ambitiously for the future. We will keep investing in the platform, because we know that it is the way to unlock more efficiencies and be even more competitive in all our markets.”
Spyros Loizou, Group Head of International IT at Eurobank Cyprus
ABN AMRO
Unifying around a single platform to enable innovation and growth
Amsterdam, Netherlands
At a Glance
• Cut product time to market by 50%
• Reduced operational costs by 25%
• 20% faster customer onboarding experience
• 20 years+ Temenos customer
Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB) is a conglomerate of banks servicing South-Eastern Europe, with operations in Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro. It offers universal banking services to the retail and corporate sectors, as well as running an investment banking arm. In six of its markets, NLB accounts for at least 10% of the market share, measured by balance sheet total. That figure currently stands at just over 16bn Euros, with reported profits of 514m Euros. It has 2.7 million customers, including 700,000 retail clients in Slovenia and a further 50,000 SME and large business clients. It manages 68 branches across the region.
Its objective is to be the leading bank in South-Eastern Europe by the end of 2030. To that end it is developing a digital-first operating model, supported by a scalable IT suite.
Two sides to scaling
For Franci Drnovšek, NLB’s IT Delivery Deputy General Manager, this goal consists of a dual strategy; on the one hand to innovate, while maintaining the highest security standards. “With open banking and the arrival of fintechs, customer expectations have never been higher. Today, everyone expects pre-approved investments, transactions to take seconds, and loan applications to take just minutes. So we must adapt to this new reality, by leveraging AI and cloud to innovate faster, but also be very strict about security.”
Always adapting
This journey was made easier thanks to the agility of Temenos core banking, that was first deployed in 2002 for its corporate customers. NLB keeps upgrading to the latest version.
The platform has proved to be very adaptable from the start. Recent examples of this were the incorporation of the new PDS2 regulations that came into force in 2019, and integrating N Banka (previously Sberbank), a newly acquired bank, in 2023. For the latter, go-live was executed over a weekend, following a year of planning and testing. “There was no interruption for our customers, the migration was successful and went smoothly. We were very proud of that.”
Following the success of N Banka retail customers migration to Temenos core, NLB who initially had deployed the core for its corporate clients only, will start migrating its retail customers too.
It’s the obvious move to make. For more than 20 years, Temenos proved very robust, reliable and scalable. That’s a journey we want to carry on with.”
Franci Drnovšek, IT Delivery Deputy General Manager at NLB
Customer-centricity in everything
Key to this is ‘Arrangement Architecture’ (AA), a powerful module within the core banking platform that allows banks to design and manage financial products in a more flexible and efficient way. “It means we can be much more customer-centric in everything from our product development to how customers engage with us.” He points to the multi-currency accounts feature and a 20% faster onboarding experience as examples of the step-change that the platform upgrade has delivered.
The bank is also seeing operational benefits.
Since we have implemented the latest version of Temenos core, we have cut our product time to market by 50%, and reduced costs by 25%.”
Franci Drnovšek, IT Delivery Deputy General Manager at NLB
Pushing on
The bank aims to migrate all its retail customers to the new platform version within 18 months, as well as leverage new capabilities such as Temenos Trade Finance to modernize and automate.
Temenos remains a key strategic partner. It has enabled us to build one of the leading banks in the region, and this history gives us confidence that we can keep innovating, adapting and growing.”
Franci Drnovšek, IT Delivery Deputy General Manager at NLB
ABN AMRO
Unifying around a single platform to enable innovation and growth
Amsterdam, Netherlands
At a Glance
• Big bang go-live of Temenos core, payments hub and wealth management on the same day for retail, corporate and private business lines
• Close of business reporting reduced to 3-4hrs from day-one
• Faster time to onboard volume-based customers
• Divide the number of client pricing conditions by up to 6
BIL (Banque Internationale à Luxembourg) is the oldest bank in Luxembourg, and the second largest in the country, with more than 200,000 customers. It offers retail, private, corporate and institutional banking as well as financial market services. As a sign of its importance, half of the country’s financial institutions use BIL’s infrastructure to process payments, totalling 25m per year (or a daily average of 200k). BIL also has dedicated wealth management offices in Switzerland and China. It has assets under management of EUR 43.8 billion, employs more than 2,000 people.
In 2020 it began a five-year strategic plan, with the stated aim to modernize its core banking system and simplify its operations in order to develop new and improved services for its clients.
Turning challenges into opportunities
That plan is also designed to make the bank more adaptable to changing regulations and banking standards, both at a national and international level. For the spokesperson at the bank, these dynamics are both an opportunity and a challenge. “Sometimes it consumes a lot of our investment capacity, limiting our resources to innovate for our clients. However, the requirements of the regulator and the changes to our infrastructure pushes us to improve data quality, transparency and speed of payments.”
This nuanced view can also be seen in the spokesperson at the bank’s assessment of fintechs and other market entrants, where competition is needed and opportunities can be explored to partner.
Reframing innovation
For BIL, the ultimate aim is innovation; what is the best route to developing new services and bringing them to market? Though the answer to that question changes over the years, history tells you that the bank regularly gets it right. BIL was one of the first banks in Luxembourg to propose a web-banking solution, to use AI to support credit decisions, to make strides in cross-border instant payments (in collaboration with Swift), and more recently has been at the cutting edge of developments in CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) and open banking.
While this spirit of innovation remains at the heart of BIL, it is now complemented with a commitment to ESG. That has been partly driven by regulatory obligations, says the spokesperson at the bank, but also the belief that ESG principles are a route to improving every aspect of the bank. As such, ESG is seen not simply in terms of carbon footprint measures and progress in diversity, but “as a whole bank framework that informs how we are organised, how we develop products, and how we interact and help our clients.” It extends to supporting customers with their own ESG journey. “We have clients in various industries who need to go through a major transition.”
Seeking scalability
BIL recognized that its ability to innovate had become compromised by outdated technology. the spokesperson at the bank recalls: “We had a 30-plus-year-old legacy system that we’d built layer after layer, year after year. It had become like a plate of spaghetti.” Amongst the issues that created was scalability. “I’ve had to refuse some services to clients because we could not onboard the volumes they were bringing.” Increasing operational costs and a shortage of qualified managers (“Who knows about mainframe technologies anymore!”) added to the case to modernize.
The bank considered a number of approaches. Replatforming was dismissed as being unceasing, and a best-of-breed build as being too costly and complex. Instead, BIL decided to invest in a new core banking platform, and turned to Gartner’s and Forrester’s rankings to draw up its shortlist. And from there, it selected Temenos.
We took the Temenos core for a few reasons. Its functional coverage was impressive, and the ability to easily switch on and configure new modules. That flexibility delivers scalability, which is super important when you’re operating in a fast evolving market.”
Spokesperson at the bank
He also points to the technical superiority of the platform, and the relationship that had been cultivated with the Temenos team through the procurement process. “We had a great synergy with their people.”
Confidence and trust
BIL took the brave decision to go for a ‘big bang’ deployment. “On the same day we replaced our legacy technology with Temenos core, Temenos Payments Hub (TPH) and Temenos Wealth Front Office, for our retail, corporate and private business lines! You only get to do that if you are totally confident in the new technology.”
The implementation program was completed in October 2023. It involved Deloitte and LTIMindtree and included user testing, business operability and readiness tests, took around 20 months. “Temenos was also a great support throughout”, says the spokesperson at the bank, recalling how some of the software development team in India even relocated to BIL’s offices for up to six months to work on the project. “Their dedication was incredible. They were a big reason why we went live successfully.”
Breaking new ground
A spokesperson at the bank points to performance as one area where the bank has seen an immediate impact.
From the very first day after go-live, we have had a constant, three-hour cycle for the close of business. And what has been really impressive is that every month on the 5th day, when we charge the monthly account management fees to our clients, close of business reporting is faster, even though the system is working harder.”
Spokesperson at the bank
The bank now has the scalability to onboard high-volume clients that it had previously turned away, and to extend its payments solutions. It also has the flexibility to segment pricing for different clients. “We have been able to divide by three or four the number of pricing conditions for our clients; for wealth management we have divided by three, and for retail and corporate by five or six. The structure of the pricing system modules allows us to work in a matrix to rationalize our approach. The complexity for our finance teams to deal with this segmentation has improved.”
Scale that improvement across the 200,000 payments that the bank processes on average every day, and the efficiencies become amplified.
BIL is also excited about how the new platform can help it break new ground in the alternative investment sector. “The fund industry in Luxembourg is very developed, and our institutional clients are increasingly creative. We now have the means to support them in building more diversified portfolios.”
Everything we need
It all points to the higher potential for growth.
Ultimately, Temenos is helping us to be more customer-centric; that means creating products that are relevant to our clients and providing a better experience consistently. Now we have everything we need to grow our volumes.”
Spokesperson at the bank
TPH will also be crucial to the bank developing new instant payment (sending and receiving) solutions, which regulators have set ambitious implementation timings for. “We know that TPH can do that.”
A spokesperson at the bank predicts that mutualization will become an increasing revenue stream for the bank.
Temenos core makes it far easier for us to co-create with financial partners. We are moving from a bank that only sells products to clients to a bank that also sells infrastructure to partners. Take payments; we already support half the banking industry in Luxembourg to process their payments. Now we have the means to develop more of these sorts of opportunities.”
Spokesperson at the bank
It points to a long-term partnership. “It’s like a marriage”, says the spokesperson at the bank. “We’re creating a relationship for the next 20-25 years at least. And all the great moments are still ahead of us.”
We partnered successfully with
One-Stop Pure-Play Global Partner for all Temenos Solutions, System Integrations and Digital Services
Deloitte is an eminent leader in digital business transformation, blending global reach with strong local expertise and the Temenos Centre of Excellence in Luxembourg and Poland.
ABN AMRO
Unifying around a single platform to enable innovation and growth
Amsterdam, Netherlands
At a Glance
• Reduced customer onboarding time by 70%
• 130% customer acquisition increase
• 200% increase in the number of customers opening deposit accounts online
• Increased operational efficiency by 40%
• New mobile app response times averaging less than 1 sec
• App has achieved a 4.9 star rating on App Store
Founded in 2013, Vietnam Public Commercial Joint Stock Bank (PVcomBank) is the result of a merger between Petro Vietnam Finance Joint Stock Corporation (PVFC) and Western Commercial Joint Stock Bank (WesternBank). Over the years, PVcomBank has expanded to become the fifth-largest digital bank in Vietnam. Thanks to its commitment to deliver ‘Banking for Everyone’, it now serves over three million customers across various segments in Retail, SME, commercial and corporate.
Innovation is a priority for this bank, which is why it rewards curiosity and experimentation. It is not afraid of failure – its culture can be described as “when things go wrong, lessons can be learned.”. That’s why it has established its Venture Studio, a safe space where start-ups are free to explore new concepts and take risks. In addition, the bank’s data sandbox fosters innovation by providing a secure and safe place to experiment with data and uncover new opportunities that can benefit customers and employees alike.
Prioritizing mobile
Mobile banking has long been the primary channel for PVcomBank’s retail business. However, in 2022, it realized its mobile service was falling short of customer expectations.
“Our mobile business was growing – we’d acquired a million new customers in 2022,” explains Trinh Vinh Hien, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank. “Unfortunately, our customer satisfaction score for mobile banking was 60%. We knew we had to make improvements.”
PVcomBank’s customers reported slow performance and poor engagement in the mobile app. At the same time, it was taking the bank more than four weeks to add new features to a product or service. “The limitation of our traditional architecture and legacy technologies had suppressed innovation and slowed our business growth,” Trinh says.
Trinh and his team realized they needed an advanced omnichannel digital banking platform to facilitate a seamless customer experience across any channel and through every step of the customer lifecycle. So, they set about looking for a suitable solution.
Seeking a solution
“We spent around six months evaluating potential vendors,” Trinh says. “We assessed how the various solutions’ end-to-end capabilities might fit with our digital service footprint and compared the scalability, configurability, security, and overall architectures.”
The most suitable solution, however, was on PVcomBank’s doorstep. The bank had already been running on Temenos core for retail and corporate banking for 7 years and was also leveraging Temenos Trade Finance. So, when it discovered Temenos digital banking, it seemed like the perfect fit.
We’d already been benefiting from Temenos’s highly automated processes that have allowed us to increase efficiencies and reduce manual tasks. We were delighted when we found that Temenos digital banking could meet our requirements, too.”
Trinh Vinh Hien, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank
He points to the impact it has had on Trade Finance. “With the smart banking capabilities of Temenos digital platform, we can now digitize Temenos Trade Finance, meaning we can further increase efficiencies, reduce manual tasks and bring this service into online channels for customers.”
Trinh was particularly confident that it would receive adequate support from the software vendor. “There’s a strong Temenos footprint in Vietnam, so this, along with our previous experience working with the company, assured us that we would get all the support we required to accelerate the implementation and get up and running quickly,” he explains.
Recognizing that its existing legacy architecture would hamper a fast implementation, PVcomBank leveraged the Temenos API framework.
By transforming our existing enterprise layers into open APIs, with integration between the enterprise service bus and Temenos digital banking’s backend, we could de-couple our legacy infrastructure and benefit from Temenos digital banking’s cloud-native architecture.”
Trinh Vinh Hien, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank
This approach to integration enabled PVcomBank to achieve faster time-to-value and helped it operate more efficiently, streamline processes with increased automation, and deliver a faster, frictionless customer experience.
A successful launch
PVcomBank successfully launched its new mobile banking solution in April 2024. “We have already migrated one million retail customers who now benefit from a consistent journey across any device and on any channel,” Trinh says. “We expect to extend the service to all of our three million customers by June 2025, and we also hope to onboard at least 500,000 new customers this year through a B2B2C model.”
Users of PVcomBank’s new mobile app can take advantage of fast and simple onboarding, AI-powered assistance, personalized offers based on their spending behaviors, and more. Slow performance is now a thing of the past, with response times averaging less than a second.
The customer onboarding time has reduced by 70%. At the same time, we’ve witnessed a 130% increase in customer acquisition using the new digital platform and 200% increase in the number of customers opening deposit accounts online.”
Trinh Vinh Hien, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank
The benefits of Temenos are not just felt by customers. “By deploying Temenos digital banking in a cloud-agnostic architecture, our operational efficiency has increased by 40%,” Trinh says. “We’re also now able to add new features to a product or service in a matter of days. This enables us to keep up with the demands of our customers and remain competitive.”
As a result, overall customer satisfaction has improved significantly. In fact, the new Temenos-powered app has received a 4.9-star rating on the App Store and a 4.6-star rating on Google Play based on feedback from thousands of reviews.
A Temenos-powered future
Trinh is quick to confirm that PVcomBank’s decision to build its mobile app on Temenos digital was the right one.
Our relationship with Temenos has been exponentially valuable for us,” he says. “The company consistently met our high expectations and its ongoing commitment to updating its platforms has been crucial to us. It means we can deliver an exceptional experience to our customers and stay ahead in a very competitive industry.”
Trinh Vinh Hien, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank
As a result, PVcomBank is certain that it will develop its relationship with Temenos further in the months and years to come. “We have big plans ahead, and we are very confident that Temenos will support us, no matter what we decide to do,” Trinh says. “The newest version of Temenos core banking has a lot of fantastic new capabilities, and we cannot wait to upgrade so that we can further strengthen our position as a leader in Vietnam’s financial services market.”