Bank of Africa, the third largest bank in Morocco, looked to expand beyond its core market by establishing corporate and trade finance operations in China. To meet the stringent requirements of the Chinese regulators, the bank needed to have the infrastructure to support the new services in place within just six months. To achieve its ambitious plans, the bank worked with expert teams from Temenos to deploy Temenos core banking and Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation. The preconfigured compliance functionality of the solutions ensured Bank of Africa met all regulatory requirements, helping it become the first Moroccan bank operating in China. Bank of Africa is now ideally positioned to facilitate trade between North Africa and the Far East.

Since its foundation in 1982, Arab Tunisian Bank (ATB) has carved out a position as a top five bank in Tunisia by offering award-winning retail and corporate products. The bank has recently gone live on Temenos open platform for composable banking looking to transform its banking infrastructure to capitalize on the new digital age. ATB is a mid-sized universal bank serving retail, SME and corporate customers with a staff of 1,300 and 134 branches across the country, awarded as the “Best Commercial Bank in Tunisia” by Global Banking & Finance.

The initial phase of the transformation of its core banking systems for retail and corporate business lines with Temenos frees the bank from legacy constraints to accelerate product delivery and digital growth. The second phase of the implementation includes additional Temenos Core Banking Capabilities and pre-composed Banking Services for Digital Banking, Payments and Enterprise Risk Management. On Temenos open platform, it aims to differentiate itself in the market as a customer-centric bank through technology and innovation. Leveraging the platform’s core and digital banking capabilities to power new growth opportunities, drive efficiencies at scale, and deliver seamless customer experiences.

ATB is a mid-sized universal bank serving retail, SME and corporate customers with a staff of 1,300 and 134 branches across the country, In 2017, the bank was also awarded the “Best Commercial Bank in Tunisia” by Global Banking & Finance. With demand for online and mobile banking rising rapidly in North Africa, Temenos’ next-generation platform, built on microservices and APIs, will allow ATB to quickly and sustainably scale its business. Cloud-native and with an ecosystem built around it, the Temenos platform also enables ATB to open up to fintechs and the possibilities of new business models in the future.

We partnered successfully with ITSS:

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

Learn more about ITSS

As its previous banking solutions reached end of life, Coast Capital seized the opportunity to refresh its core environment and introduce more business and product flexibility for its 595,000 members. The credit union—the largest in Canada by membership—deployed Temenos core banking for retail banking, gaining the ability to perform in-depth analysis of customer data that would shape its growth. Armed with deep insights into member preferences, Coast Capital is rolling out more personalized services, ensuring greater customer satisfaction today and in the future.

ACLEDA started life providing credit to small and medium-sized businesses operated by victims of war in Cambodia. Following a strategic shift, ACLEDA entered the banking market, and implemented Temenos core banking to underpin the transformation. Using the Temenos platform, the bank has developed retail services including loans, online accounts, cash management and trade finance. These packages have won ACLEDA the status of Cambodia’s leading commercial bank and enabled international growth in Laos and Myanmar.

O-Bank is Taiwan’s first digital-native bank. It was initially established in 1999 as Taiwan Industrial Bank, a corporate bank. In 2017, it acquired a commercial banking license so that it could enter the retail space and restructured into O-Bank, or ‘Wangdao’ in Chinese. O-Bank’s Chinese name is drawn from a spirit of inclusiveness, walking the right path, and fulfilling oneself by benefiting others. The English letter ‘O’ represents fulfillment and the unending cycle of life. The bank is committed to sustainability and is focused on delivering innovative financial services products that create win-win outcomes and mutual prosperity for consumers.

Venturing into new markets

Successfully entering the retail banking space is a challenging feat, particularly in Taiwan which is often described as overbanked.

“We only had a year to prepare, build, and launch our retail business,” says Lichen Hung, O-Bank’s Chief Information Officer. “This was a challenge. Since we are a mid-sized operation, we don’t have significant IT resources like enterprise-sized banks, so we are not equipped to build our own infrastructure.”

That’s why O-Bank sought a comprehensive core banking platform, one that could not only enable it to launch quickly, but also support its need to develop and launch personalized, customer-relevant products rapidly.

“Customers are no longer prepared to wait for new products, so we need to act fast,” explains Lichen. “We needed a flexible system to facilitate this and help us deliver personalized offers to our customer base.”

Speed and scalability

Lichen and her team began searching for a solution. Unfortunately, the first two options they found would take more than a year to implement. But then they discovered Temenos.

“The Temenos core banking platform stood out,” Lichen says. “Following discussions with the Temenos professional services team, who shared their previous implementation experience, we were convinced we could make our launch deadline.”

O-Bank was also impressed by the Temenos core banking architecture.

In 2016, O-Bank began the implementation. Everything went smoothly and, although there were some challenges along the way, O-Bank was supported by the Temenos professional services team, which was on hand to provide coaching and offer advice.

“The Temenos team solved all our difficulties. As a result, we met our deadline and, within 12 months, we were able to open our doors as Taiwan’s first digital-native bank.”

Lichen and her team have never looked back. Today, O-Bank has over half million customers, $21 billion USD in assets, and over $100 million USD in profits.

Much of this success is owed to O-Bank’s new-found ability to operate at speed. For example, with Temenos core, the time to onboard a new customer was reduced from seven days to just two or three hours.

Faster time to market

Temenos core banking is also helping O-Bank to launch new products in a matter of days.

Using Temenos core banking’s in-built automation tools, O-Bank can personalize new products to specific customer segments without manual intervention. For example, O-Bank has recently launched a multitier deposit account that pays different interest rates depending on the account holder’s financial circumstances. This approach is already proving a hit with customers. In the quarter following O-Bank’s launch of its multi-tiered deposit account, it witnessed a 12% uptick in account openings and a 75% increase in deposit balances.

A growing success

Since its establishment, O-Bank has grown its customer base each year. These customers are sticking around: “Our success comes from attracting new customers and then keeping hold of them,” Lichen says. “Loyalty is a priority”. We partner with a customer, and then take care of all their financial service needs over their whole life.

O-Bank isn’t resting on its laurels. Thanks to its use of Temenos, it is preparing to take advantage of the opportunities arising from open banking by leveraging APIs to connect with external ecosystems.

This will help it to continue to innovate.

Powerful partnerships

In the longer term, O-Bank plans to migrate its corporate business to Temenos core, too. “Having one core platform is our ultimate goal,” Lichen says. “We will achieve it through our long-term, strategic partnership with Temenos.”

When asked if she would recommend Temenos to other banks like hers, Lichen replied with an emphatic ‘yes’.

“If you want to launch a digital bank from scratch, then Temenos is your best solution,” she says.