Bank of Abyssinia

Launching Ethiopia’s first 100% digital banking services, helping underserved communities access loans, deposits and more

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

At a Glance

• Achieves first-mover advantage with the first fully digital banking services in Ethiopia

• 1,000+ new accounts opened each day, helping to increase financial inclusion

• 4 months to implement Temenos digital banking

• Takes seconds to process and approve loans applications, rather than months previously

Established in 1996, Bank of Abyssinia is currently the largest privately held bank in Ethiopia, and plans to become the leading commercial bank in East Africa by 2030. To reach this milestone, the bank is on a mission to grow its customer base, boosting financial inclusion in the country and beyond.

Helping more Ethiopians access banking services

According to the National Bank of Ethiopia, 75 percent of Ethiopians don’t have a bank account and up to 40 percent of all bank branches in the country are located near to the capital. For many years, banks have struggled to expand their reach beyond urban centers as setting up and running branches in rural locations involves significant upfront capital expenditure and high operational costs.

However, market conditions are rapidly changing in Ethiopia, as more people gain regular and reliable access to the internet. Bank of Abyssinia identified an opportunity to help more people access financial services by building a 100 percent digital banking offering.

Addis Tadesse, Director for Application Management at Bank of Abyssinia, explains: “We’ve offered digital banking services for many years, but most of these services still required our customers to visit a branch at some stage – for instance, to bring identification to open new accounts. Also, some processes such as loan applications required in-person consultations. If we could make the experience completely digital, we would be able to reach underserved communities in remote areas and dramatically increase our market share.”

With no other bank in Ethiopia offering a fully digital service, Bank of Abyssinia decided to pioneer the new approach and searched for a technology partner to support its initiative. Crucially, the bank targeted a solution provider that would help it deliver a truly seamless digital experience and ensure that it could meet strict regulatory requirements for new digital banks set by the National Bank of Ethiopia.

Finding the perfect solution

Bank of Abyssinia decided to build 100 percent digital banking services with Temenos. At the same time, the bank chose to upgrade its Temenos core banking system to ensure that it could provide customers with the very latest innovations in both digital and in-branch banking.

“We’ve used Temenos core banking for over 10 years and throughout that time we’ve seen how reliable, scalable and robust Temenos solutions are. For example, Temenos core banking has been easy to customize, and provides real-time reports that enable us to track the overall financial performance and efficiency of the bank. These in-depth insights help our executive leadership to make smarter operational decisions.”

Addis Tadesse, Director for Application Management at Bank of Abyssinia

Protecting against fraud

As the first bank in Ethiopia to launch entirely digital services, Bank of Abyssinia knew its new platform would be a potential target for fraudsters and cyber criminals. To safeguard against this risk, Bank of Abyssinia also decided to implement Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation—equipping the bank with the tools to spot and prevent illicit activity in near real-time.

“When your only interaction with new customers is online, it’s vital that you can verify their identity from the moment they sign up. With Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation, we can identify potential fraudsters and immediately prevent them from making transactions. And because Temenos digital banking is built with open banking in mind, we can easily integrate third-party identity solutions to support our Know-Your-Customer activities.”

Addis Tadesse, Director for Application Management at Bank of Abyssinia

Deepening partnerships

To achieve a rapid implementation, Bank of Abyssinia enlisted the support of Temenos business partner Xpert Digital to deploy Temenos digital banking, including the setup of an API integration with Idemia—the bank’s identity and security solution. Supported by Temenos and Xpert Digital, Temenos digital banking went live in just four months.

“Xpert Digital played a lead role in helping us design a digital banking ecosystem that is secure, reliable and, crucially, easy to use,” comments Addis Tadesse. “The Xpert Digital team went the extra mile by helping us to redesign key workflows for a completely digital environment incorporating best practices. For instance, they helped us to leverage integrations with Idemia to build efficient, highly secure and automated verification processes—allowing us to onboard customers rapidly and with confidence.”

Welcoming new digital customers

By building and launching end-to-end digital banking services with Temenos core and digital banking platforms, Bank of Abyssinia has significantly increased its customer base.

“Temenos gives us the tools we need to offer reliable, convenient and always-on digital banking services,” explains Addis Tadesse. “Today, through our Apollo service, customers can sign up for an account from their mobiles by submitting a video of themselves and a copy of their national identity card. With Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation and Idemia, we can run verification processes quickly and get new customers up and running with their new bank account within one day.”

“We’re impressed with the growth we have seen since we implemented Temenos digital banking. We are seeing up to 1,000 new accounts opened every day, and the majority of these are via our digital banking channel—and we expect this number to increase in the months ahead.”

Addis Tadesse, Director for Application Management at Bank of Abyssinia

Empowering more people to invest in their future

As well as offering digital account management services, Bank of Abyssinia enables customers to apply for loans via its mobile banking app—helping more people to access credit, as Addis Tadesse adds: “With Temenos digital banking, we can approve the loan and give our customer to their funds within a few seconds, as long as they meet our lending criteria, where previously this would take months.”

He concludes: “With Temenos, we’ve been able to bring a game-changing solution to the Ethiopian banking sector and empower our customers to bank with us confidently at any time and from any location. We look forward to strengthening our partnership with Temenos in the years ahead as we continue to develop our digital banking offerings and help more customers manage their money effectively.”

We partnered successfully with

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Core Banking
Digital Front Office
Financial Crime Mitigation

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Islamic Banking
Retail Banking

Bank of Abyssinia

Launching Ethiopia’s first 100% digital banking services, helping underserved communities access loans, deposits and more

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

At a Glance

• 3 months to migrate major acquisitions to Temenos core banking

• 45 days to launch branch operations in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from scratch

• 50% efficiency gains in the back-office support highly cost-effective growth

• 49% rise in profits in 2022, a new record for Capital Bank

• 12 months for the subsidiary National Bank of Iraq to go live with Temenos core banking and payments hub

• Processed 188,000 payments in the first month after launch, with 99% STP rate

Established in 1995, the Capital Bank of Jordan (Capital Bank) specializes in commercial and investment banking services for retail and corporate clients. Capital Bank has developed into one of the top financial institutions in Jordan, and has built a strong regional presence through expansion into markets including Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

A spokesperson at the bank, says: “The last three years have been remarkable for our business. We’ve grown in Jordan to become the 3^rd largest bank, rising from the 15^th position in 2020, We also currently rank among the 50 largest banks in the Middle East.”

How has Capital Bank made such an impressive rise? With a strategy aimed at driving rapid expansion across local and regional markets, fueled and sustained by the bank’s longstanding partnership with Temenos.

Bringing on big acquisitions

Capital Bank has counted on Temenos core banking technology for more than a decade. As the bank ramped up its growth plans, it knew that its core banking model also needed to evolve.

A spokesperson at the bank explains: “In 2020, we began negotiations to acquire Bank Audi’s operations in Jordan and Iraq. They were a bank of similar size to us, so it was a serious undertaking, effectively doubling our operations. We wanted to bring them onto our Temenos core banking system, and we decided to upgrade to the latest release of Temenos in preparation for the integration.”

The upgrade primed Capital Bank to take advantage of a more modern system architecture and all-new functionality. It paved the way for a swift, smooth integration of the Bank Audi business; in all, it took between three to four months to complete the core banking migration.

Capital Bank’s expansion strategy took another leap forward in late 2022, with the acquisition completion of Société Générale Bank Jordan. Once more, Capital Bank was able to migrate the new business’ core banking operations to Temenos in a span of just three months. This allowed the bank to minimize disruption to both employees and customers, while unlocking the benefits of a larger operational footprint sooner.

We are very proud of what we have achieved with the acquisition of these two banks. It’s no small thing to integrate an entire business into your own in just a few months, but we were able to do it thanks to Temenos and the commitment of our project team. Having a strong core banking system, and people who are willing to go the extra mile, were instrumental to our success.”

Spokesperson at the bank

Deepening and expanding the partnership

With these latest acquisitions under its belt, Capital Bank turned its attention to a more established part of its business: the National Bank of Iraq. Acquired in 2005, the National Bank of Iraq deal has allowed Capital Bank to make inroads into an important regional market.

Until 2022, the bank had been running on a legacy core banking system. In that year, Capital Bank decided to also migrate the bank’s end-to-end operations to the Temenos core banking platform. At the same time, it also deployed the Temenos Payments Hub (TPH) at National Bank of Iraq, the first bank in its suite of companies to adopt the solution.

The relative size of the National Bank of Iraq (about twice as big as Capital Bank), and deploying TPH, made the project more complex than previous migrations. Yet it was completed within one year, noting that the project also involved bringing more than 25 third-party vendor integrations, deployment of four other brand-new systems, configuration of new automations, including with the central bank of Iraq, and translation of the system into Arabic. With all the testing completed, the actual migration was delivered in December 2023, taking 96hrs, with all the planned capabilities, dashboards, and metrics available from day one of go-live.

The work was led by one in-house project manager, with Temenos and ITSS Egypt, a Temenos partner, providing support.

This was a highly complex exercise, with many moving parts. Through countless hours of hard work, collaboration, and tireless efforts, we took just 12 months to transition the National Bank of Iraq to a cutting-edge core banking system and a new payments hub, resulting in smooth operations from day one.”

Spokesperson at the bank

The bank didn’t have to wait long to see the impact. In the first month after go-live, it processed 188,923 incoming and outgoing domestic and international payments, with a 99% STP rate. The project was also named ‘Best Core Banking Implementation: Best Project Implementation’ by IBSi as part of their 2023 Innovation Awards.

The partnership with Temenos has supported Capital Bank establish additional presence in Saudi Arabia. Two years ago, National Bank of Iraq received a banking license to launch a new branch in Riyadh, the country’s capital city. To get operations at the site up and running and start accepting customer transactions, the bank implemented a new instance of Temenos core banking, going live in just 45 days.

Recipe for success

A spokesperson at the bank is in no doubt about the game-changing nature of its expansion of Temenos to the National Bank of Iraq.

This new system will not only enhance operational efficiency but also support providing our customers with a superior digital banking experience. The achievement marks a significant milestone in our digital journey and positions us as a leading player in the banking industry.”

Spokesperson at the bank

Reflecting on the project, Izzidin Abusalameh points to several crucial factors. On the technical side, the availability of pre-configured out-of-the-box capabilities within both Temenos core banking and TPH meant the team could avoid building complex customizations. He also points to the value of having a meticulous project plan from the outset, detailing thousands of tasks, that acted as a reference throughout the project and ensured clarity and accountability at all times.

Culture was also an ingredient of success, says a spokesperson at the bank, “We had the right people, with relevant skills, experience and spirit, and enabled by our board with authority to make quick decisions.”

Supporting stellar operations

With Temenos core banking now deployed throughout its businesses, Capital Bank has a trusted and powerful platform for supporting its full range of banking products and services across retail, corporate, asset management, and more. When the bank wishes to enhance existing services or introduce all-new products, it uses Temenos to simplify and accelerate the process.

“Temenos core banking makes life easy for us,” confirms a spokesperson at the bank. “It’s essential for us, providing all the capabilities we need to support our banking operations. When we are building a new product or implementing a new bank business model, we put as much on the core as possible, because we know that Temenos is capable of supporting it.” In Temenos, Capital Bank has found a partner it can count on to keep expanding and improving this core banking universe.

Our partnership with Temenos is immensely valuable to us. Every year, Temenos releases new features and enhancements. They keep up with the latest technology developments and constantly bring something new to their customers.”

Spokesperson at the bank

Free to grow

Enabled by Temenos, Capital Bank has been able to grow without limits, adding new products, and winning more customers all while controlling cost and complexity. As operations have expanded, the bank has simultaneously lifted back-office efficiency by at least 50 percent.

The efficiency gains translate into a better experience for Capital Bank’s rapidly growing customer base. They can count on transactions to be processed quickly and accurately, and for service requests to be handled promptly. It allowed the bank to maintain high customer retention levels—crucial to the long-term success of its acquisitions—and to cultivate a reputation for service excellence that’s helping it win even more new business.

With Temenos core banking in place, along with the improvements we continue to make to processes and workflows, we have been able to bring much more efficiency to our back-office operations as we have grown. Compared to three years ago, our operational efficiency is at least 50 percent higher.”

Spokesperson at the bank

Fit for the future

Capital Bank’s hard work over the past three years has led to impressive financial results, including record profits with a 17% increase over the previous year. The bank considers Temenos to be an important contributor to this success, and an integral part of its plans for the future. No surprise then that it plans to upgrade all its banks to the latest release 23 of the Temenos core banking throughout 2024 and extend TPH to Capital Bank of Jordan as well.

A spokesperson at the bank continues: “We have big plans for the coming years and wherever that journey takes us, we know that Temenos will be accompanying us. Through all our growth and change, Temenos core banking has been the one constant.”

We partnered successfully with

ITSS provides high-quality services for banks with Temenos Transact in parts of Africa, Middle East, Asia and Latin America.

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Core Banking
Payments

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Bank of Abyssinia

Launching Ethiopia’s first 100% digital banking services, helping underserved communities access loans, deposits and more

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

At a Glance

• Strengthens status as a top-five bank in Vietnam and one the most innovative players

• Enables frictionless, personalized user experiences across all channels

• Faster time to market for digital banking services with Temenos digital banking platform

Sacombank is one of Vietnam’s largest banks, with more than 15 million retail and business banking clients—half of whom are digital customers. The bank also operates 566 branches across Vietnam, as well as subsidiaries in Cambodia and Laos.

In Vietnam, more than half of the population is under 35 years old. Digital services are therefore a strategic priority for Sacombank, as it aims to capture a greater share of the lucrative millennial and Gen Z market segment. The country is also a hotspot for digital innovation with a thriving fintech and e-commerce industry, and boasts one of the fastest growing digital economies in Southeast Asia.

Thach Nguyen Ngoc, Director of Application Operations Center, Sacombank, explains: “Vietnam is leading the way in digital banking in Southeast Asia. We have a young population of digitally savvy consumers who expect to be able to do everything on the go from their preferred device. To stay competitive and attract more customers, we must deliver a truly frictionless omnichannel experience.”

Elevating the customer experience

Already recognized as a leader in digital banking in Vietnam by prestigious publications such as the International Business Magazine, Sacombank now aimed to take its services to the next level. “Innovation is at the heart of everything we do,” confirms Thach Nguyen Ngoc. “We’re always looking to implement new ideas, new products, and new processes to improve the customer experience.”

After a thorough evaluation of top-ranked solutions, Sacombank selected Temenos digital banking to unify the user experience across all of its digital delivery channels, including its eBanking web portal, mBanking, mSign, and Sacombank Pay mobile apps. Temenos digital banking platform enables a comprehensive 360-degree customer view, helping Sacombank to acquire, service, retain, and cross-sell to customers on multiple channels and devices.

“What initially attracted us to Temenos digital banking solution was the flexibility and adaptability of the platform. The system gives us pre-composable services—built on microservices and accessible via APIs—as well as localized capabilities incorporating best practices, which are exactly what we need to build and launch stronger digital experiences for the Vietnamese market.”

Thach Nguyen Ngoc, Director of Application Operations Center, Sacombank

Trusting in Temenos

Sacombank worked closely with Temenos to deploy Temenos digital banking. The platform’s open architecture supports integration with Sacombank’s existing systems, including its Temenos core banking system, and external third-party applications. By running Temenos end-to-end platform, Sacombank benefits from complete front-to-back banking capabilities.

Thach Nguyen Ngoc recalls: “Temenos helped us to get everything up and running very quickly; the experience of their implementation team really shone through. We have used Temenos core banking since 2004, and strongly believe that Temenos has the best reputation, capability, and technology on the market.”

Bringing better services to market faster

With Temenos digital platform, Sacombank can create frictionless, personalized customer experiences across all delivery channels—from web to mobile to branch—much more easily than before. The platform’s extensive repository of ready-to-go features means that Sacombank’s developers have everything they need to build new digital banking services at their fingertips.

Crucially, Temenos digital platform is helping Sacombank to ensure that the user experience is always easy, secure, and consistent—no matter how customers engage with its services. “With Temenos digital banking, we are better positioned to deliver the seamless omnichannel experience that younger generations expect,” says Thach Nguyen Ngoc.

“Temenos digital platform has significantly reduced the time and effort required to build and launch new digital banking products. This enables us to go market faster and roll out new features regularly, so we can respond rapidly to emerging customer needs and stay competitive.”

Thach Nguyen Ngoc, Director of Application Operations Center, Sacombank

Continuing to innovate

Looking ahead, Sacombank plans to introduce fully digital customer onboarding and origination, eliminating the need for customers to visit a branch when they sign up for the bank’s services. Sacombank also plans to further enhance the experience for existing customers through its digital channels. “We’re constantly looking for ways to improve and innovate, and make life simpler for our customers,” says Thach Nguyen Ngoc.

In addition, using Temenos digital platform will help Sacombank connect with e-commerce providers, social networks, and other online services to enhance its value proposition to customers—which will be vital as Vietnam continues to digitize its economy and moves towards a cashless payment ecosystem.

“It’s an exciting time for digital innovation in banking in Vietnam, and we are glad to have Temenos on side as a key strategic partner. Working together, we will streamline our digital experiences and offer something new to the market, helping us continue to win new business among the crucial under-35s market segment, and strengthening our status as a leading innovator and top-five bank in Vietnam.”

Thach Nguyen Ngoc, Director of Application Operations Center, Sacombank

Region

Asia Pacific

Solutions

Core Banking
Digital Front Office

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Bank of Abyssinia

Launching Ethiopia’s first 100% digital banking services, helping underserved communities access loans, deposits and more

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

At a Glance

• Greenfield corporate bank established to support Saudi Arabia’s non-oil export sector.

• Temenos Core deployed, including Corporate Lending, as well as Trade Finance, and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) modules.

• IFRS module implemented in 3 months.

• Plans underway to extend Temenos footprint with new modules, including Temenos Payments Hub and Temenos Data Hub.

Saudi EXIM Bank was established in 2020 with a clear vision – to support and accelerate the growth of non-oil Saudi businesses in international markets. Its creation is a key part of the Kingdom’s ‘Vision 2030’ strategy to diversify its economy, and reports to the National Development Fund. It provides export credit, trade finance, and lending solutions to Saudi enterprises seeking global expansion.

Start with the best

Entering into an already competitive market, Saudi EXIM knew that technology would be a key differentiator.

Our vision from the outset was to invest in high-quality technology and software systems as a driver of success. We based our needs on a 10-year view, so scalability and futureproofing was key.”

Ahmed Soliman, Financial Application Technical Advisor at Saudi EXIM

Commonality was also important. As a greenfield bank with no legacy, EXIM had the luxury of mandating a single core banking solution across its entire business. That meant a platform with a wide breadth of capabilities – transaction management, credit administration and approvals, asset management, customer data analysis and risk management being some of the key ones that the bank evaluated solutions against.

EXIM shortlisted Temenos Core because of its reputation in the market. From there, the platform stood out in a number of regards, recalls Ahmed. A user-friendly interface and navigation provided the bank with confidence that Temenos would be easily adopted by users. Integration with third-party software would allow for automation; a capability that has been applied to customer onboarding and credit risk. And expectations for constant innovations have already been realized. “In every new release there are valuable additions,” says Ahmed.

Flexibility and control

EXIM went live with Temenos Core in January 2023 initially deploying Corporate Lending and Trade Finance, supported by Temenos Islamic banking features. The in-built flexibility of the Temenos’ Corporate Lending capability has allowed the bank to create tailored products for different markets, most notably for compliance with Sharia law. With proven success, the bank now has an ongoing development roadmap of specially configured corporate lending products.

Conversely, EXIM is using Temenos’ Trade Finance in its out-of-the-box format. As Ahmed notes, the ready-to-use nature of the module meant that they could add it into the initial implementation scope, without adding complexity. The bank is using Trade Finance primarily to source letters of credit and guarantees.

The agility of Temenos’ solution was further tested when the bank’s finance team asked for support adapting to international accounting standards. Temenos provided an expert in this field, who worked with the bank to understand its specific needs. Within three months of that request, the bank had also activated the platform’s International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) module, a first for the region with the bank now enabled to configure solutions for specific markets.

It speaks to how the bank leverages the expertise and diligence of Temenos from within the platform.

Temenos stays on top of regulations around the world. This saves us a lot of time and resources, especially in reporting to the National Development Fund.”

Ahmed Soliman, Financial Application Technical Advisor at Saudi EXIM

Temenos Core also serves as the data hub for all analysis that the bank performs, from customer onboarding numbers to productivity measures. “We now have a single source of truth, without the need for any manual intervention, which has been one of the key objectives of the bank from the start.”

Accelerating transformation

Innovation has been the ultimate prize; the ability to launch new products into the market at rapid speed. This has been reflected in the numbers. Today, the bank has over 300 accounts, across more than 100 corporate customers.

Its customers are highly satisfied with the bank’s collaboration, which has supported their objectives from the beginning by enabling quick and efficient onboarding, providing timely transaction advice and notifications, and helping them better plan and manage their cashflows. This partnership has been instrumental in achieving their financial goals. What’s more, Ahmed’s team is receiving more and more requests from the bank’s different business units to adapt products and create new ones, evidence that everyone understands the capabilities they possess.

Alongside the technology, EXIM also values the personal side of its partnership with Temenos.

Temenos has great experts and account managers who help us to discover more capability and how to maximize the investments we have made and achieve our goals. They are always open to exploring new opportunities with us.”

Ahmed Soliman, Financial Application Technical Advisor at Saudi EXIM

Those conversations are now focussed on expanding how Temenos can help the bank through Temenos Payments Hub and Temenos Data Hub.

Ahmed emphasises this strategic advantage: “With Temenos Core, we’re not just running a bank – we’re enabling Saudi businesses to compete globally with world-class financial services. With Temenos, we have the technology to scale our impact and continue to be a catalyst of growth for years to come.”

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Core Banking
Payments

Sector

Corporate & Commercial Banking

Bank of Abyssinia

Launching Ethiopia’s first 100% digital banking services, helping underserved communities access loans, deposits and more

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

One of MENA’s leading international banks, Bank ABC will replace its legacy core banking systems for its network of operations serving customers in twenty-five markets from fifteen countries worldwide with a single instance of the Temenos platform. Temenos and Systems will replace its core banking systems for its retail, corporate and wholesale businesses and furthermore power its subsidiary, ila Bank, the MENA region’s fast-growing digital mobile-only bank. Consolidating multiple back-end systems on the Temenos platform in the Cloud will enable Bank ABC to drive scalable efficiency, with a single dashboard and complete 360-degree customer view across business lines and geographies.

Today, marks a momentous milestone in our journey to build our bank of the future. Consolidating our banking systems on a single platform will give us a robust foundation to accelerate growth and create significant value for our stakeholders. Temenos offers an ideal Cloud-native solution with the breadth of banking functionality needed to support all spectrums of our wholesale and retail businesses. I am confident that this next-generation core banking system will drive further operational efficiencies for the Group, enabling us to become even more responsive and adaptive to our clients’ ever-evolving needs.”

Sael Al Waary, Acting Group CEO at Bank ABC

The first phase of the project is the implementation of Temenos retail core banking solution and origination on digital banking for ila Bank. Subsequently, Bank ABC will leverage Temenos’ cloud-native solutions and its open and API-first architecture for easy extensibility and open banking integration to enhance the experience and the services delivered to its customers. The project will see the gradual transformation of the Group-wide core banking infrastructure, enabling Bank ABC to benefit from Temenos’ broad set of banking functionality and lower operational cost across its retail and wholesale banking operations.

Achieving operational agility is crucial for the future success of Bank ABC. We are continuously exploring leading-edge technologies to enable our ambitious expansion and digital transformation aspirations. Temenos’ platform will enable us to efficiently scale our services. In addition, hosting our core banking system on the Cloud will significantly increase our levels of security and resilience. We look forward to working with Temenos and NdcTech teams during the implementation phase and reaping the benefits of this investment.”

Ismail Mokhtar, Group Chief Operating Officer at Bank ABC

We partnered successfully with

Systems LTD empowers banks and financial institutions wherever they are on their paths of transformation and partners with them to create lasting value. Systems does this to build Banks of the future.

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Cloud & SaaS
Core Banking

Sector

Business Banking
Challenger Banks
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Bank of Abyssinia

Launching Ethiopia’s first 100% digital banking services, helping underserved communities access loans, deposits and more

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

At a Glance

• Supports 4.5 million customers and secures 33% of the Islamic banking market in Pakistan

• Rises to fourth largest Pakistani bank from 13th in 2009

• 30% faster product development enables innovation and boosts appeal to customers

• 20 times rise in deposits and 400% growth in branch network since 2009

• 90% more online transactions than over-the-counter transactions.

Meezan Bank has achieved a meteoric rise to become the largest Islamic bank in Pakistan. Initially established as an investment bank, Meezan Bank became the first Islamic commercial bank of Pakistan in 2002, with a comprehensive range of Shariah-compliant retail, business, treasury, trade finance, and corporate banking services.

Ali Imran Khan, Deputy Chief Information Officer at Meezan Bank explains: “We aim to be first choice for people seeking financial services without compromising on their faith. By bringing our offerings to more consumers, we hope to improve financial inclusion and create a more equitable society.”

In recent years, the Islamic banking market in Pakistan has become increasingly popular. Although Meezan Bank is the pioneer, there are now many other Islamic and conventional banks with Shariah-compliant offerings. So how has Meezan Bank managed to rise so quickly and maintain its status as the premier Islamic bank in Pakistan? One key factor has been the Bank’s longstanding focus on strengthening its technological infrastructure. Over the years, the Bank has held a longstanding partnership with Temenos.

Aiming for a streamlined and scalable approach

In the years following its launch, Meezan Bank saw consistent growth in customer volumes, deposits, and transactions. Gradually, though, as the Bank’s popularity grew over time so did its demands for an efficient technology strategy. At that time, each branch ran its own servers to record and process transactions. But as the bank expanded to more than 150 locations, there was a need for a more sustainable, less complex and costly solution.

Ali Imran Khan continues: “Our legacy core banking system was decentralized. Customer data was not stored centrally and we had to do extra efforts to enable the online transactions. We continued to add hardware when we opened a branch, which resulted in managing hundreds of servers, taking up valuable time and resources.”

Harnessing a centralized core system

To maintain its upwards growth trajectory, Meezan Bank looked to replace its legacy systems with a powerful, centralized core banking platform. After assessing potential solutions, the bank chose Temenos core banking, engaging Temenos business partner Systems Limited to plan and manage the implementation.

Temenos core banking offered high levels of scalability and the opportunity to implement international best practices. The solution also provided useful multi-book accounting functionality. Temenos works with many leading banks in Pakistan, and Systems Limited has extensive experience working on major transformation projects.”

Ali Imran Khan, Deputy Chief Information Officer at Meezan Bank

During the deployment, Systems Limited helped to familiarize users at Meezan Bank with the tools in Temenos core banking, as Ali Imran Khan confirms: “It’s important to have knowledgeable partners for large-scale projects. Systems Limited and Temenos were excellent: they not only resolved any issues/challenges faced, but also helped us build our internal skillset.”

Enabling seamless fintech integrations

Today, Meezan Bank uses the full suite of modules within Temenos core banking to support its operations—from deposits and treasury services to Islamic trade finance. The bank is also exploring using the open API capabilities of the Temenos platform to integrate with third-party solutions.

The functionality of Temenos trade finance platform is very rich and Temenos is continuously enhancing it, adding integration with other systems, as well as partners. The automation features have significantly reduced processing times, allowing us to handle a higher volume of transactions with unparalleled efficiency.”

Ali Imran Khan, Deputy Chief Information Officer at Meezan Bank

Ali Imran Khan adds: “Islamic fintechs are a growth market in Pakistan, especially in payments and financing. We have already connected our core platform with services from one startup, and we know that it will be quick and easy to onboard others. In time, we expect the Pakistani market to move towards Open Banking; Through continuous investment in digital infrastructure and innovation, we aim to pioneer the future of banking, making it more accessible, convenient, and customer-centric. Temenos core banking gives us the integration capabilities we will need to capitalize on the shift.”

Expanding the scope for innovation

Using Temenos core banking, the bank integrated the core platform with its digital and mobile channels to enable customers to access their accounts, check transactions, and make payments anytime, anywhere.

Innovation is integral to our success, and we invest heavily in research into combining leading-edge banking services with Shariah guidelines, Temenos fits right into this mix. With Temenos core banking, we have reduced time to market for new products by at least 30 percent compared to our legacy systems—which helps us to increase our appeal to consumers.”

Ali Imran Khan, Deputy Chief Information Officer at Meezan Bank

Meezan Bank can now launch a product in 3 to 4 months’ time, previously, it was more than a year.

Reaching millions of customers

Replacing distributed legacy systems with a centralized core platform has made expanding the bank’s branch network much easier. Now, the bank simply onboards new locations to the platform, without adding local infrastructure. Meezan Bank had around 200 branches when Temenos was deployed; it now has more than 1000 across Pakistan.

Enhanced services and a wider branch network have contributed to a much larger customer base: Meezan Bank has more than 4.5 million customers and is now the most profitable Pakistani bank. Meezan Bank also continues to lead the Islamic banking market, with a 33 percent share—When Temenos was deployed, Meezan Bank had just reached the top 15 banks in Pakistan, with deposits of PKR 100 billion; today, it is ranked number four, with deposits of PKR 1.66 trillion. On the digital front, Meezan bank’s transaction volume are growing, with 90% more online transactions than over-the-counter transactions.

Ali Imran Khan continues: “Temenos core banking has been one of the important components in our phenomenal growth. The platform allows us to innovate and seamlessly manage much higher transaction volumes.”

Winning international recognition

Meezan Bank’s success has brought plaudits within Pakistan and beyond. The bank has been named as the ‘Best Bank’ – (2018 & 2020) and ‘Best Consumer Bank’ (2022) at the most prestigious Pakistan Banking Awards by IBP Pakistan, as well as being heralded by prestigious international publications such as Global Finance, Asiamoney and The Banker.

“Temenos is one of our most valuable partners: they are committed to our success, offer an excellent product roadmap and a first-class solution. In our 14 years of operations with Temenos, we were able to roll out numerous initiatives where we had some challenges but with help from Temenos team we were able to resolve these challenges in a timely manner. We look forward to the next stage of the collaboration as we continue to expand our products and services and build a fairer and more prosperous Pakistan.”

Ali Imran Khan, Deputy Chief Information Officer at Meezan Bank

We partnered successfully with

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

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Core Banking

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Islamic Banking
Retail Banking

Bank of Abyssinia

Launching Ethiopia’s first 100% digital banking services, helping underserved communities access loans, deposits and more

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

At a Glance

• Sets new standards for innovation as one of the first digital-only banks in Ecuador

• Plans to bring new banking services to one million existing cardholders and business clients

• Running on the Amazon Web Services public cloud provides exceptional levels of availability

• Data analytics supports development of differentiated, hyper-personalized services

Since 1968, Diners Club Ecuador has been among the premier financial service providers in South America. Part of Grupo Pichincha—one of the largest finance groups in the region—Diners Club Ecuador was the first issuer of credit cards in the country, and has since extended its services to include payments, insurance, investments and much more. The organization now serves around one million cardholders and merchants.

Mónica Carrión, Vice President of Services Center Club Ecuador, explains: “We lead the Ecuadorian credit card market through continuous innovation and improvement. We are always focused on building lasting relationships with our clients and merchant clients, helping them at every stage of their lives.”

Tackling a fresh challenge

In recent years, a regulatory change has created a valuable opportunity for Diners Club Ecuador. The new rules allow the organization to operate as a full-service bank, rather than solely as a credit card issuer and merchant acquirer. To take advantage of the new financial landscape, Diners Club Ecuador planned to launch user-friendly banking products, including deposits, loans, and mortgages.

We wanted to embrace a digital-first model, giving clients the flexibility to access our services online at the click of a button on a 24/7 basis. This would also make us one of the first digital-only banks in Ecuador. To broaden our appeal to new clients, we aimed to tailor our banking services to address the needs of different market segments.”

Mónica Carrión, Vice President of Services Center at Diners Club Ecuador

Making the transition into banking would require a new technology strategy. The key requirement was a powerful, scalable core banking platform to manage transactions, ensure compliance, and support always-on digital services. Alongside this, Diners Club Ecuador looked to enhance its data analytics capabilities to enable the development of smarter, more targeted products and services.

“Exceptional performance and availability were absolute musts for our new core solution, as just one second of downtime could have huge costs and significantly damage the client experience,” adds Mónica Carrión. “We wanted to extend our use of predictive models and AI beyond credit scoring and risk management to understand client behaviors in more depth.”

Harnessing proven solutions from the market leader

After compiling a shortlist of providers that could deliver core banking and sophisticated analytics solutions in South America, Diners Club Ecuador decided to deploy Temenos core banking and Temenos Analytics running on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud.

We noted that third parties including Gartner and Forrester ranked Temenos as the world-leader for core banking platforms. Plus, we received excellent references from other banks using Temenos solutions, which gave us confidence. Temenos could offer real thought leadership in the banking sector, too, which would be helpful as we had previously concentrated solely on the credit card market.”

Mónica Carrión, Vice President of Services Center at Diners Club Ecuador

She continues: “Another point in favor of Temenos was their investment in research and development; we knew we were getting the best and latest banking functionality. The cloud model is part of our long-term innovation strategy, allowing us to optimize cost efficiency and outsource infrastructure management.”

Implementing high-performance cloud-native tools

Diners Club Ecuador worked with Temenos to implement and configure the core banking and analytics solutions running on the AWS cloud. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizations employed a remote working model to maintain momentum on the project.

Mónica Carrión adds: “The deployment was a steep learning curve, but Temenos offered support at every stage.”

The Users across the IT, product design, innovation, and marketing departments at Diners Club Ecuador now harness the Temenos solutions to develop digital banking services, monitor and analyze online client interactions, and process transactions. Easy to scale, the cloud-native Temenos on AWS solutions have been purpose-built to provide high levels of performance, resilience, and security.

Our teams were very quick to get to grips with the capabilities within the Temenos solutions. We find the robustness and availability of the platform and the flexibility of the development tools very useful, which allows us to set parameters for new products and services”

Mónica Carrión, Vice President of Services Center at Diners Club Ecuador

Bringing digital banking to Ecuador

Working with Temenos, Diners Club Ecuador is adding banking products to its existing credit card portfolio. Already, existing clients are opening bank accounts, with more services planned for the coming months. The simple, secure 100% digital banking offerings will enable users to access accounts, and check and manage transactions while on the move, 24/7.

Among the services currently under development are interest-bearing deposits accounts, advance billing services for businesses, and mortgage loans. The organization has also created bespoke lending products for merchants that enable users to sign up online with just a few clicks; within a few months, Diners Club Ecuador has already granted loans worth tens of millions of US dollars.

Mónica Carrión explains: “With Temenos, we have enhanced our value proposition, bringing user-friendly digital banking to the market. In the coming months, we aim to cross-sell banking services to one million existing clients, as well as winning new business”.

Using Temenos Analytics, Diners Club Ecuador is uncovering insights into client preferences, as Mónica Carrión confirms: “With Temenos Analytics, we can analyze clients’ purchasing habits and create more compelling and hyper-personalized banking services. This will help to inspire long-term loyalty.”

Building a more successful future

Diners Club Ecuador is also keeping a close eye on Open Banking regulations in Europe, with the possibility that the rules could soon be extended to Ecuador. If this happens, the API capabilities of the Temenos platform will place Diners Club Ecuador in an excellent position, enabling seamless third-party integrations.

Temenos are a world-class partner. Building on our long and successful history, we see an even brighter future, with Temenos playing a key role in our evolution. We are setting the standard for finance innovation in Ecuador and within the Diners Club International franchise network globally.”

Mónica Carrión, Vice President of Services Center at Diners Club Ecuador

We partnered successfully with

*Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a secure cloud services platform, offering compute power, database storage, content delivery and other functionality to help businesses scale and grow.*

Region

Latin America

Solutions

Cloud & SaaS
Core Banking
Payments

Sector

Business Banking
Challenger Banks
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Bank of Abyssinia

Launching Ethiopia’s first 100% digital banking services, helping underserved communities access loans, deposits and more

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Baiduri Bank is one of the largest providers of financial products and services in Brunei, and serves diverse customer segments ranging from retail, MSMEs to corporate and institutional clients. The Bank offers a comprehensive suite of digital solutions including an award-winning mobile banking app and dedicated business digital banking service. The bank will adopt Temenos banking services for core banking, data analytics and financial crime mitigation (FCM) to support its retail and corporate banking, finance and wealth management operations. With this move, Baiduri Bank will be the first bank in Brunei to operate its core banking platform in the cloud under the SaaS model.

Since 2020, we have embarked on a digital transformation journey with the aim of leveraging technology to elevate operational efficiency, analytical capabilities and ultimately, customer experience. Our core banking project, a strategic investment will be the next, and most significant milestone in this journey.”

Ti Eng Hui, Chief Executive Officer at Baiduri Bank

Replacing legacy systems with Temenos modern SaaS on Microsoft Azure will enable Baiduri Bank to offer superior customer propositions with personalized offerings at a fraction of the time and cost. The move to Temenos Banking Cloud will commence in 2023, led by Temenos implementation partner Tech Mahindra. Temenos Banking Cloud allows Baiduri Bank to progressively renovate its IT landscape using a composable banking approach to deploy new services faster, more cost-effectively, and at scale.

To succeed in the fast-evolving digital landscape, we need flexible, scalable solutions that are both responsive and efficient. Temenos Banking Cloud opens up new opportunities for Baiduri Bank by providing instant access to world-class banking capabilities and the flexibility to consume what we need as we need it. Moving to SaaS for core banking is a first for a Brunei bank and a major step forward for Baiduri Bank. We engaged IDC to undertake a thorough market evaluation and Temenos was selected for its composable architecture and breadth of banking services to meet our current and future needs.”

Ti Eng Hui, Chief Executive Officer at Baiduri Bank

We partnered successfully with

Microsoft

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

Tech Mahindra

Tech Mahindra, a global certified partner of Temenos, delivers complex core banking integration projects on multi-variant delivery models to the BFS industry.

Region

Asia Pacific

Solutions

Cloud & SaaS
Core Banking
Financial Crime Mitigation

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Bank of Abyssinia

Launching Ethiopia’s first 100% digital banking services, helping underserved communities access loans, deposits and more

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Established in 1975 as a public shareholding company, Invest Bank offers a wide range of financial products and services for corporate as well as retail banking. Invest Bank intends to leverage Temenos’ event-driven open-API architecture and extensibility framework to go beyond banking and create a lifestyle services platform. The premier commercial bank in UAE, has selected Temenos to take its digital and core banking to the cloud in partnership with Systems.

Invest Bank will adopt an end-to-end retail and wholesale banking solution on the Temenos Banking Cloud, becoming one of the first in the UAE to adopt a full SaaS model for its digital and core banking platform. The front-to-back capabilities of digital banking and core banking delivered as SaaS on Temenos’ open platform for composable banking will enable Invest Bank to modernize legacy platforms, bring new products and services to market faster, as well as deliver more innovative customer experiences. Planned enhancements include instant onboarding and origination with automated approvals based on AI-based rules. The bank will also use the Temenos platform to improve operational efficiency with increased automation and digitized workflows.

We are proud of this partnership with Temenos and NdcTech to transform our digital and core banking. We strive to be a pioneer when it comes to customer experience and digital services and with Temenos, the future is today. The bank’s core and digital banking services will be working seamlessly together on a single platform. This will help us to foster innovation, automate workflows, as well as deliver digital experiences to meet our customers’ evolving needs faster and at a lower cost.”

Ahmad Mohamed Abu Eideh, CEO at Invest Bank

We partnered successfully with

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

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Cloud & SaaS
Core Banking
Digital Front Office

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Bank of Abyssinia

Launching Ethiopia’s first 100% digital banking services, helping underserved communities access loans, deposits and more

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Allied Irish Banks (AIB) is the Ireland’s largest bank and is critical to the growth of the country. The bank offers retail, business and corporate banking and aims to deliver a more resilient platform to provide much richer lending capabilities in a more digital fashion to its customers. This is why AIB defined a core strategy to tackle its core modernization. The bank decided to replace its complex, slow, and costly legacy core banking applications with Temenos core banking platform. The goal of the program is to consolidate multiple legacy core banking systems onto one market-leading platform surrounded by an API-driven architecture.

Pat O’Sullivan, CIO Business Platforms explains: “With Temenos, Allied Irish Banks is working to streamline business credit onto a single platform to deliver a modern, flexible solution that will provide business credit capabilities to all AIB’s customers. With Temenos, we are consolidating disparate systems, and removing complex, manual processes, which in turn reduces cost, and it enables us to rapidly respond to our customer demands and enhance our service. This is one of the most fundamentally important and strategic programs underway at AIB and is at the center of our ambition to transform the bank.”

“Referenceability was key for us. We wanted a product that was proven in a similar size bank in Ireland using the capabilities that we were going to use and we got that from talking to some of Temenos customers. Secondly, we understood from these customers that Temenos really works with you to overcome issues to hit their dates, and in a large program that’s really important that you can be dependent on your vendor.”

Spokesperson at the bank

AIB chose Temenos because of the referenceability of its core banking in the marketplace, the functionality, and the very rich and very flexible product capability that would work to bridge any gaps. The first phase of the 4 years modernization project is related to the business and corporate accounting. AIB went live with Release One for Bilateral Loans 11 months after signing. AIB current focus is on SME lending and delivering a very rich end-to-end digital product for their customer. In 2024 and 2025, AIB will be more involved in corporate syndication to deliver rich financial capabilities to its customers with the support of Temenos.

“For us culture, and basically making sure a program’s purpose resonates with all the people involved, I would call out as really critically refreshing in our experience with Temenos. The culture of the team that Temenos has, working with us, is impressive.”

Pat O’Sullivan, CIO Business Platforms at Allied Irish Banks

Region

Europe

Solutions

Core Banking

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking

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