Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

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.

Region

Europe

Solutions

Core Banking
Payments
Wealth

Sector

Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking
Wealth Management

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

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.”

Region

Asia Pacific

Solutions

Core Banking
Digital Front Office

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

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

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

Cristina Mahika-Voiconi, General Manager at Libra Internet Bank

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

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

Spokesperson at Libra Internet Bank

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

Region

Europe

Solutions

Core Banking
Financial Crime Mitigation
Payments

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

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

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

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

Anssi Huhta, Executive Vice President, Banking Business & Deputy CEO at Aktia

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

Region

Europe

Solutions

Core Banking
Payments

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

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

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

Qamber Al Mulla, Chairman of Africa and Gulf Bank

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

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

Nadeem Lodhi, Chief Executive Officer, Africa and Gulf Bank

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Core Banking
Payments

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

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

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

Ho Nam Tien, Vice Chair and General Director, LPBank

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

Region

Asia Pacific

Solutions

Core Banking

Sector

Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

Launched in 2002, Rawbank aims to drive economic growth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by providing financial services to retail, business, and corporate clients. In just over 20 years, Rawbank has expanded to become the largest commercial bank in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As the bank expanded its share of the market, it needed to scaleup in its lending division. Previously, Rawbank assessed loan applications manually—a time-consuming and labor-intensive method that offered limited insight into the probability of clients defaulting on repayments. Moving forward, the bank wanted to improve its decision making and minimize exposure to risk by gaining a deeper understanding of applicants. In addition, the bank looked to accelerate the approvals process to deliver a higher standard of service.

The use of Temenos XAI enabled us to gain the full benefits of AI in managing risk and increasing profits while using models which we can easily understand, analyze and augment with our expertise. I have been really impressed with the level of service we get from Temenos.”

Nadeem Akhtar, Director Performance Branch Network at Rawbank

Realizing that automation offered the smartest approach, Rawbank decided to use the Temenos Explainable AI (XAI) platform to streamline and improve its risk assessment for retail, SME and Corporate lending. The solution will enable the bank to rapidly develop, deploy, and integrate predictive risk models into its credit scoring workflows to determine the likelihood of applicants meeting repayment schedules. XAI will also provide transparency into how it calculates credit scores, enabling Rawbank to explain lending decisions to clients and regulatory authorities.

With XAI providing deeper insight into loan applications, Rawbank expects to reduce its loss given default rate and increase net profits on lending considerably. As well as protecting against default risk, increased levels of automation will improve the speed and efficiency of loan approvals, ensuring higher quality of service. And the bank will be able to continuously optimize the predictive models to ensure accuracy.

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Digital Front Office

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

At a Glance

● Supports 40% growth in customer volumes and 40% boost in assets under management

● Enables the launch of first-of-a-kind funds transfer services via mobile and online

● 50% faster to launch new products to the market

● Went live in just 10 months despite significant disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic

● Breaks new ground as the 1st Libyan bank to deploy the Temenos digital platform

Already one of the top banks in Libya, Assaray Trade and Investment Bank (ATIB) has ambitious plans to become the leading digital bank not only in its home market but across the whole North African region. To achieve this, ATIB focuses on delivering first-class services that win growing numbers of customers, while building streamlined internal operations to attract the very best banking talents.

Farouk K. Laabidi, General Manager, ATIB, explains: “10 years ago, ATIB primarily focused its efforts on the corporate market. However, with the ever-increasing demand for retail online and mobile banking services among consumers, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the bank has strategically expanded its services into the retail banking space. Targeting these digitally-savvy customers is a key strategic goal for us.”

Setting the standard for innovation

Operating in Libya presents significant challenges for banks, as the country’s national infrastructure is currently in the process of development and its political situation has experienced some periods of unpredictability, which can present slowness to growth. Many banks have been unrushed to embrace digital technologies, with some not fully integrated to the national payment system and unable to accept all types of electronic transfers. But where other service providers see limitations, ATIB recognizes huge opportunities for building long-term success. ATIB believes that innovation is a matter of culture, it starts from the top, and all employees are encouraged to embrace it.

Farouk K. Laabidi continues: “We have focused on digital transformation since 2014, bringing many innovative services to market. For example, during the difficult times of cash shortages in the period of 2016–2019, we were one of the leading banks to launch reliable prepaid payment cards and offer an electronic wallet application that allows users to purchase goods via their mobile devices. As well as enhancing and developing new digital services, we are now excited by the possibilities of open banking.”

However, ATIB realized that its existing core and digital banking solutions were starting to restrict its ability to innovate. Building tailored services for different customer segments was a difficult, time-consuming process, and the bank did not have the modern API functionality to interface with third-party services. To sharpen its competitive edge, ATIB started to look for a more advanced, customer-centric solution.

Choosing a solution with extensive capabilities

Keen to overhaul and modernize many components of its banking infrastructure, ATIB looked for a partner with extensive knowledge and experience of large-scale transformation projects. The bank decided to deploy an integrated suite of core and digital banking solutions from Temenos including Temenos Analytics, and Temenos Payments.

“We knew that Temenos is a global leader for core banking solutions, and they demonstrated deep understanding of our challenges and the future of the banking sector. Temenos technology is very impressive, especially the product development and API integration capabilities, which would allow us to connect to many different third-party services.”

Farouk Laadibi, General Manager at ATIB

Adopting a remote deployment model

Working with Temenos and Temenos business partner Prema Consulting, ATIB kicked off the implementation of the solutions, starting with Temenos core banking in a two-phase project that was completed in just ten months. To optimize performance and efficiency, the bank runs the core platform on the Microsoft Azure public cloud.

Dunia M. Ajaj, Head of PMO at ATIB, comments: “The implementation was complex, and we experienced huge disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After one month we faced severe travel restrictions, but Temenos showed great flexibility by switching to a remote deployment strategy. Going live in ten months was a great result, with Temenos delivering excellent support to keep the project moving forward.”

Muawiya Abu Jubain, CEO, Prema-C, added “We believe that ATIB’s project is a strategic project for us, knowing the ambitions the bank management and employees have in deploying the world renowned Temenos core banking system. And we wanted to be part of this exciting journey that brings growth and innovation to ATIB. Despite the pandemic, we managed to reach the bank’s goal of going live in a record time of ten months. This could have never been achieved without the dedication of ATIB’s team, Prema consultants, and the Temenos project management team and consultants.”

Transforming the customer experience

Using Temenos core banking, ATIB enhanced many of its customer services. For example, the bank used the rich integration functionality of the Temenos solution to deliver greater flexibility to customers using its prepaid payment cards. Whenever users need to top up their card with funds from their electronic wallet or account, they can now manage the process quickly and easily via their mobile device.

“Temenos core banking delivers so many great capabilities; from high levels of security to close control over financing arrangements. We have also halved our time to market for new products and services with the Temenos solution.”

Abdulmohaimen M. Matoug, Head of Digital Transformation (Revolv) at ATIB

Using Temenos Analytics, ATIB adopted a more customer-centric approach to development, as Farouk K. Laabidi explains: “With our old core platform, we could not gain a detailed picture of customer behavior. Using Temenos Analytics, we analyze their preferences and requirements in depth, and build more relevant, personalized offerings closely aligned with their financial needs and lifestyles.”

Breaking new ground in the Libyan market

Since then, ATIB has worked with Prema Consulting to implement Temenos digital banking platform – becoming the first bank in North Africa to harness the cutting-edge capabilities of the solution. The bank went live on an on-premises instance of the solution in a phased deployment process, with the business partner helping to integrate the platform with Temenos core banking and a series of third-party solutions.

ATIB has used Temenos to develop and launch a brand new feature-rich digital banking service for retail and corporate clients: ATIB Online. Accessible web and mobile app, that allows users to manage their accounts, monitor transactions, top up local and international payment cards in various currencies, and purchase mobile phone vouchers thanks to integrations with several network operators and internet service providers.

In another breakthrough move, ATIB recently added transferring funds between two bank accounts within Libya, as Farouk K Laabidi explains: “We added an integration with the national payment system to allow users to transfer money online or via their mobile. This represents a first-of-a-kind service for the Libyan market, so once again we are leading the way in terms of innovation.”

Offering customers the speed and convenience of transacting online without having to head to a bank branch has had a hugely positive impact on satisfaction levels. And ATIB Bank plans to add more products and services to the digital application, as Farouk K Laabidi notes: “We are around 60 percent of the way towards reaching our digitalization objectives. We are planning to use Temenos digital banking to create online loan origination and onboarding workflows in 2024, and we will also implement Temenos Payments Hub.”

Reaching new customers

The partnership with Temenos is helping ATIB to achieve its goal of increasing market share and becoming one of the banking leaders in Libya and beyond. The enhanced portfolio of products and services has contributed to a 40 percent boost in customer volumes, and the bank has grown its assets under management by 40 percent since partnering with Temenos. In particular, during the first three months of offering ATIB Online, the platform gained 5,000 new users—and is now aiming to onboard 20,000 by the end of 2023, and 100,000 by the end of 2026.

“Working with the Temenos solutions, we are reaching more clients than ever before. Not only are we consolidating our leadership in the corporate banking space, but we are extending our share of the retail banking market, too. As we launch more digital services with Temenos digital banking platform, we are confident that this upwards trend will continue well into the future.”

Dunia M. Ajaj, Head of PMO at ATIB

A Step Ahead of the Competition

Within ATIB, the Temenos solutions have had a significant impact on workflow efficiency. Higher levels of automation removed the need for manual interventions during many key processes, enabling employees to work more productively and reducing overall costs. Furthermore, this focus on efficiency has helped ATIB reduce its cost-to-income by up to 15 percent, and to achieve a strong return on equity of between 15 and 17 percent.

ATIB also believes that deploying a modern, world-leading suite of banking solutions will help to attract the brightest bankers in Libya.

As the Libyan banking market becomes more digitalized and embraces Open Banking, ATIB is in prime position to take full advantage, as Abdulmohaimen M. Matoug explains: “The Temenos solutions will enable us to integrate with many different partners, not only among financial services providers but also airlines and utilities companies to provide customers with more convenient payment methods.”

“With Temenos, we believe the sky is the limit on what we can achieve. Whatever innovative ideas we conceive, we know we can develop and bring them to market using the solutions. Thanks to our partnership with Temenos, we are moving towards our goal of becoming the leading digital bank in Libya and the wider region and staying well ahead of our competition.”

Dunia M. Ajaj, Head of PMO at ATIB

We partnered successfully with

Prema Consulting

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

Microsoft

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

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Core Banking
Digital Front Office
Payments

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Islamic Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

At a Glance

• 1.5 million new digital accounts, including 78% net-new clients, since launch of new mobile app

• 4.9 out of five rating for unique mobile app that provides access to seven financial services

• 100% increase in market share, reaching top-four position in Taiwan for digital banking accounts

• 3x faster time to market for new services with latest upgrade of Temenos core banking

In a crowded marketplace, you need to think outside the box and offer something unique to succeed. That’s the challenge for Bank SinoPac operating in Taiwan, one of the most oversaturated banking markets in the Asia Pacific region. Part of Taiwanese finance group SinoPac Holdings, the bank serves individual and corporate clients and also operates in China, Hong Kong, Macao, Vietnam, and the United States.

Irene Huang, Chief Digital Officer, Bank SinoPac, explains: “We are competing against 38 commercial banks for a slice of a limited market. But there are opportunities, too. For example, there is high demand for digital and mobile banking services among younger people, especially those we call High Earners, Not Rich Yet or HENRYs, who form an important target demographic.”

One key component in Bank SinoPac’s strategy is a focus on digital innovation, as Irene Huang adds: “On the one hand, it’s about embedding new technologies, such as open APIs and artificial intelligence (AI). But it’s also about the right mindset, and always thinking of the customer experience when designing products. While many Taiwanese banks are conservative in their thinking, we adopt a more innovative approach.”

Taking the first steps on the transformation journey

This strategy dates back as far as 2009, when Bank SinoPac began to transform its core banking environment. To replace inflexible legacy systems, the bank selected Temenos core banking. They migrated previously data related to three million customers onto the platform. The move led to major efficiency gains: close of business (COB) processes ran 70 percent faster, and infrastructure costs were cut in half.

We chose Temenos core banking for the modern architecture and full suite of core banking functionality, such as product development and secure data management. The deployment ran very smoothly, with excellent support from Temenos. Temenos has delivered the high stability and performance needed to support our domestic and international operations ever since.”

Irene Huang, Chief Digital Officer at Bank SinoPac

Entering the era of open banking

Since then, Bank SinoPac has worked with Temenos to upgrade the core platform in 2012 and 2020. The latest upgrade provided access to advanced API integration functionality, which enabled the bank to take advantage of the open finance initiative launched in Taiwan in 2020. The bank uses the open APIs to interface with the systems of 12 partner organizations and SinoPac Holdings subsidiaries.

“One of the best things about Temenos is they continuously roll out new functionality, which has allowed us to offer open banking services. The robust data governance capabilities of Temenos core banking help us comply with stringent local regulations. Plus, the platform gives us the scalability to support AI initiatives launched by SinoPac Holdings, which generate huge volumes of data.”

Irene Huang, Chief Digital Officer, Bank SinoPac

For the internal teams at Bank SinoPac, Temenos solution has proved easy to use, as Irene Huang confirms: “Temenos core banking is a very intuitive platform. For example, the preconfigured components simplify work such as product development, eliminating the need for us to write lines of code.”

Developing a first-of-a-kind mobile banking app

Using Temenos core banking has enabled Bank SinoPac to push ahead with its innovation strategy. For example, the latest upgrade helped the bank achieve a threefold improvement in time to market for new services. The solution also helped the bank kick off the development of new digital banking services, such as the groundbreaking DAWHO app, which stands for Digital Account with Happiness and Opulence.

Irene Huang explains: “In Taiwan, banks typically offer mobile apps to manage only one service, such as savings or payments, causing a fragmented experience when users want to complete several different transactions. With DAWHO, we aimed for an ‘ecosystem’ approach that would offer customers a frictionless digital journey and enable them to access multiple services through one portal.”

In a first for the Taiwanese market, DAWHO integrates seven services: deposits, wealth management, foreign exchange, personal loans, mortgages, credit cards, and securities—all provided by Bank SinoPac or a SinoPac Holdings subsidiary. Temenos core banking processes all customer transactions made through the DAWHO app and enables the bank to create and deploy new product features.

Attracting an extra million customers

The DAWHO app has been a huge success, giving Bank SinoPac a valuable differentiator in the Taiwanese market. User feedback has been extremely positive, with satisfaction scores of 4.9 out of five on the Apple App Store. And in just over three years since the launch of DAWHO, the bank has seen 1.5 million customers open digital accounts—including 78 percent, or 1.17 million, net-new clients.

The app has helped Bank SinoPac to reach younger market segments, as Irene Huang notes: “Before the launch of DAWHO, the average age of our retail banking customers was 47. Today, it is 33—indicating that we have increased our appeal to generations Y and Z, including the HENRYs.”

This surge in customer numbers translates into a much bigger slice of the Taiwanese market. “We are now ranked number four in Taiwan in terms of digital banking account holders,” explains Irene Huang. “And overall, we have grown our market share from around five to ten percent since the rollout of DAWHO.”

Refining the digital experience

In the latest collaboration, Bank SinoPac is using Temenos digital banking to reshape and unify the user experience across all its digital delivery channels—including its e-banking web portal and mobile app, DACARD payments app, and integrated DAWHO app. The project is progressing well, and the bank expects to complete the enhancements and launch the new digital ecosystem early in 2024.

Irene Huang adds: “Our design team finds Temenos digital banking very useful for developing new layouts for our digital portals. They also highlight the value of Temenos Visualizer, which gives them the tools to create a consistent look and feel for all of our apps. Once live, we will be able to roll out updates to all four digital portals at once through Temenos digital banking, rather than having to run them separately.”

“Temenos has been a very important partner to Bank SinoPac over many years. It’s a collaboration founded on great solutions and great support and we hope it will continue well into the future. Working with Temenos has enabled us to build innovative services that help us to stand out and succeed in an immensely challenging market, and to broaden our customer base.”

Irene Huang, Chief Digital Officer at Bank SinoPac

Region

Asia Pacific

Solutions

Core Banking
Digital Front Office

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

At a Glance

• 1 million daily transactions processed seamlessly at peak times with Temenos core banking

• 3x faster time to market for new services compared to typical core systems

• 6 months to complete new acquired USD 2.2 billion bank integration that has tripled customer base

Established in the Kingdom of Bahrain in 2006, Al Salam Bank is a pioneering Sharia-compliant bank. It offers an extensive range of retail banking services, together with corporate banking, private banking, asset management, and treasury services, and serves tens of thousands of customers throughout the Kingdom.

Since its launch, Al Salam Bank has pursued an aggressive strategy of expansion, targeting triple-digit growth across all metrics and building income from diverse lines of business. This approach has helped Al Salam Bank establish itself as the fastest-growing bank in the region and an influential force in the Islamic banking industry.

Mohammed Saleh, VP of Information Technology at Al Salam Bank, comments: “Starting in 2010, we have made a series of high-profile acquisitions. Along with organic growth, this strategy has significantly increased our customer base, assets, and income, and helped Al Salam Bank grow into the biggest Islamic bank in Bahrain.”

Sustaining the growth curve

Although acquisitions have been the driving force behind Al Salam Bank’s impressive growth, they also add significant complexity to operations. Each acquisition brings additional employees and customers for the bank to onboard, along with new systems and processes to integrate. Managing this complexity takes a strong vision, strategy, and execution—backed by a firm technology foundation. For core banking technology, Al Salam Bank counts on Temenos, which has served as a key partner since day one.

“Our management originally chose Temenos core banking platform based on the strength of its reputation and the flexibility of its development and integration framework. Unlike other core banking systems, which can be quite rigid and hard to customize, Temenos makes it easy for us to adapt to new requirements from the business, and rapidly roll out new functionality and products. This agility is invaluable to us as a bank that’s constantly growing and changing.”

Mohammed Saleh, VP of Information Technology at Al Salam Bank

Today, Al Salam Bank uses Temenos core banking modules to support its operations—from deposits and treasury services to wealth management, all in compliance with Sharia banking principles.

Harnessing fast, flexible core banking

Used by Al Salam Bank for more than 15 years, Temenos has more than lived up to its reputation for core banking excellence. The bank has made multiple extensions, integrations, and upgrades on the platform, which has proven to be both fast and flexible.

Mohammed Saleh says: “Most of the banks that we have acquired over the years were using different core banking systems. When we migrated them onto Temenos, they really noticed the difference, especially in terms of the platform’s flexibility and speed to market for new servicers. For instance, at other banks, it can typically take six months to bring new products to market. With Temenos, we can bring new products to market three times faster, in no more than one to two months,.”

Managing millions of daily transactions

Supported by Temenos, Al Salam Bank has been able to maintain its impressive growth trajectory and keep its banking services in constant evolution. The past year in particular has been an important period of expansion and renewal for the bank. In early 2022, Al Salam Bank completed an upgrade of its core banking system.

Immediately after this upgrade, the bank made a major acquisition, taking on Ithmaar Bank’s consumer banking business in a transaction worth USD 2.2 billion. With the acquisition, Al Salam Bank tripled its customer base—and thanks to Temenos, was able to onboard the new customers and their data swiftly and smoothly.

“We transformed from different core banking system to map and migrate all of the customer data. We also followed governance from Temenos services teams to ensure that we followed the correct steps during the migration. This enabled us to complete the process in record time: the project took just six months from start to finish. What’s more, it was a very seamless transitions; we were able to bring the new business onto Temenos without any disruption to the customer experience.”

Mohammed Saleh, VP of Information Technology at Al Salam Bank

Growing strong with first-rate services

As Al Salam Bank continues its journey of expansion, it can count on Temenos to provide a scalable core banking foundation, capable of handling significantly higher customer and transaction volumes without missing a beat.

“When we tripled our customer base with our latest acquisition, we anticipated that there might be some performance or volume issues,” admits Mohammed Saleh. “Instead, it proved incredibly easy to scale our core banking environment within the same infrastructure footprint. This allowed us to avoid making additional hardware investments, helping to keep our costs down.”

“Alongside this increase in our customer base, we’ve seen a big jump in transactions. We now process around 400,000 transactions a day. At peak times, like at month end when salaries are paid, we can reach up to one million daily transactions. Temenos core banking supports it all flawlessly; it gives us great confidence to know that the platform can handle pretty much anything we throw at it.”

Mohammed Saleh, VP of Information Technology at Al Salam Bank

Reaching new heights of success

Buoyed by its latest acquisition, as well as the organic expansion of key business lines, Al Salam Bank has seen its banking business grow from strength to strength. In 2022, the bank posted a total operating income of USD 412 million, a 42 percent increase on the previous year. During the same period, Al Salam Bank saw net profits rise by 48 percent to reach more than USD 83 million.

Mohammed Saleh concludes: “Temenos has been a vital contributor to our remarkable growth. They’ve been by our side through it all, as we’ve made many acquisitions and expanded our horizons to new lines of business and customer segments. We consider Temenos to be much more than a technology provider; they are a truly invaluable partner to Al Salam Bank. Together, we can look ahead to a bright future.”

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Core Banking

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Islamic Banking
Retail Banking

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