Sector: Islamic Banking
Bank NXT
Leading Egypt’s Payments Transformation
Cairo, Egypt
At a Glance
• 80% faster time to market for new products.
• 120% increase in transaction volumes.
• 90% reduction in manual intervention across operations.
• 75% straight-through processing rate achieved.
Bank NXT, a leading provider of integrated banking solutions in Egypt, has set its sights on becoming one of the country’s top ten banks in terms of Return on Equity (ROE) and Return on Assets (ROA). The bank is taking a bold, tech-forward approach, with a strong focus on flexibility, speed, and delivering differentiated services across both retail and corporate segments. With people at the core of its transformation journey, Bank NXT continues to introduce innovative solutions designed to meet evolving market expectations.
Delivering better service starts with advancing your technology. Traditional approaches are no longer enough to attract today’s customers. We need to deliver faster, differentiated, and more compelling experiences that meet their evolving expectations.”
Mohamed Hussain, Head of Solutions Delivery at Bank NXT.
Breaking free
Before the bank’s modernization journey, launching new products required significant development efforts, extensive testing, and multiple workarounds even for basic features. Simple changes involved custom development and lengthy testing cycles, often resulting in months of delay.
“As part of our earlier processes, we had to build everything from validations and parameters to compliance logic. Even the smallest updates required considerable effort,” explained Mohamed Hussain.
The need for transformation became increasingly urgent due to growing pressure from tech-savvy customers, emerging fintech competition, and heightened regulatory requirements. A modern core banking system and a more agile, scalable payment infrastructure were essential to support the bank’s evolving ambitions.
A leap forward
Marking a significant milestone in the Egyptian banking sector, Bank NXT became the first institution in the country to implement Temenos Payments. This was deployed in tandem with Temenos Core and additional modules, including Trade Finance, Treasury, and Transaction Recycler. To enable seamless integration, the bank also adopted IRIS, Temenos’ API-ready integration framework.
“Temenos Payments changed everything for us,” said Mohamed Hussain. “We can now launch new channels or respond to central bank mandates within days rather than months. Our users have seen the speed and flexibility of the system and they now expect us to move faster.”
Bank NXT’s payment channels, including ACH, SWIFT, and IPN, have been unified under a single orchestration layer, granting the bank full control over routing, prioritization, and compliance. This modular, API-enabled infrastructure is powering a new wave of services, such as instant salary transfers and faster customer payments.
This agility extends to compliance, as Mohamed explained: “We’re now operating with low-code, almost no-code platforms. So when new regulatory requirements are introduced by the central bank, we can implement updates within days and move quickly to market.”
Results you can see
The transformation has delivered tangible, measurable impact across all areas of the bank’s operations. Product development cycles are now 80% faster, while manual intervention has decreased by 90%, as teams leverage automated repair queues and warehouse views, significantly reducing delays and enhancing operational efficiency. Additionally, transaction processing volumes have increased by 120%, supported by a steady rise in the bank’s straight-through processing (STP) rate.
“Our STP rate has reached 75%, and we continue to see opportunities for further improvement,” noted Mohamed Hussain. “We’re now processing payments with greater accuracy, minimal rework, and higher levels of customer satisfaction.”
Born from trust
Bank NXT selected Temenos following a thorough competitive evaluation not solely for its technology, but for its proven track record in the Egyptian market and its reputation for delivering scalable, flexible solutions.
“Temenos had the proof,” stated Mohamed Hussain. “We were looking for a true partner, not just a provider – someone who could deliver with quality and remain committed for the long-term partner.”
Temenos’ delivery approach, supported by both local and global partners, ensured a high-quality implementation that aligned seamlessly with Bank NXT’s strategic objectives. The adoption of the IRIS integration platform enabled rapid deployment without the need for extensive custom development, ensuring the system remains agile and ready for future growth.
Always innovating
With its core and payments systems fully transformed, Bank NXT is now focused on leveraging artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to drive deeper personalization, enhance decision-making, and elevate the overall customer experience.
“AI represents the future of banking,” said Mohamed Hussain. “To position ourselves as the boutique bank of choice, our decisions must be driven by data, not assumptions. That’s how we will continue to lead.”
As the first bank in Egypt to modernize its payments infrastructure at this scale, Bank NXT is not merely adapting to change– it is setting a new standard for what modern, agile, and customer-centric banking should be.
“Our partnership with Temenos goes beyond deploying advanced technology,” Mohamed concluded. “It is rooted in a well-defined strategy. This is not a short-term upgrade, but a long-term alliance focused on sustainable growth.”
Banking solutions for all segments
Empowering banks across segments with scalable, innovative, and efficient solutions.
Customer Success Stories
Real stories of transformation with Temenos solutions.
Bank Albilad
Pioneering digital banking in Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Bank Albilad
Pioneering digital banking in Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
At a Glance
• Enabled Bank Albilad to get up and running in 6 months
• Launch new products in 3 days
• Reduced COB activities from 4-6 hours to 1 hour
• New subsidiaries can be up and running in a day
• 71% of retail customers now join via digital channels
Established in 2005, Bank Albilad was the first bank in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to offer Shari’ah-compliant products. The bank provides services to retail, corporate, and SME clients with a vision to be the preferred choice for innovative Islamic banking solutions. Operating in a rapidly changing sector, Bank Albilad is embracing innovation to shape Saudi Arabia’s future banking landscape. Its strategy is built on a culture of proactively leading, collaborating, and – through its dedicated innovation center – co-creating innovative solutions tailored to meet the needs of customers and stakeholders. This commitment to driving change has propelled its success: It was one of the first banks to establish an open banking platform and has aligned itself with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 to create the best future for the country’s inhabitants.
Built on success
When it opened its doors back in 2005, Bank Albilad wanted to be at the forefront of Saudi Arabia’s digital transformation.
“There was a large proportion of people in the Kingdom with unmet banking needs,” says Ahmed AlZikan, Bank Albilad’s Chief Information Officer. “They were looking for Shari’ah-compliant products but couldn’t easily access a bank branch. We wanted to foster inclusivity and create a range of products that anyone in the country could access, no matter where they were located.”
To this end, the bank began looking for software that would enable it to establish a digital business from the outset. It sought a provider that would help it get up and running as quickly as possible and allow it to take Shari’ah compliant products to market easily.
Temenos emerged as the ideal partner.
We liked that Temenos offered a complete set of front-to-back capabilities that would support our end-to-end operations. Using its software, we would be able to launch new customer-facing products and services rapidly and also quickly adapt existing products to meet evolving customer needs.”
Ahmed AlZikan, Chief IT Governance Officer at Bank Albilad
Speed matters
Within just six months of selecting Temenos, Bank Albilad’s retail business was up and running. “It was incredibly fast,” Ahmed said. “We started with an earlier iteration of Temenos core banking and have since upgraded to a new version. We also added Temenos digital banking , which we believe has given us an edge in Islamic banking.”
Bank Albilad’s corporate arm is also built on Temenos core banking. “All of the product configuration for our business banking happens within the Temenos solution,” Ahmed explains. “Even though access management is carried out in the platform itself – it is easy to establish a hierarchy of accounting authorization.”
Bank Albilad felt the benefits of leveraging Temenos core banking right away. “Everything is low-code,” Ahmed says. “IT can now build a product in three days. It takes far longer for our other teams to develop their products using Java or .NET, for example.”
The bank’s teams can then configure these products directly within the platform, accelerating product innovation. “The beauty of Temenos core banking is that our teams can configure products without actually talking to IT,” Ahmed explains.
This isn’t the only way that Temenos core banking is helping Bank Albilad to work quickly. It has also dramatically reduced close of business (COB) time.
When we started our business, it would take around four to six hours for us to process the various events of the day. With the latest version of Temenos core banking, we can now do this in an hour.”
Ahmed AlZikan, Chief IT Governance Officer at Bank Albilad
A fast track for growth
These productivity benefits have scaled as Bank Albilad has diversified. “Temenos is helping us reduce the cost of IT and expedite our growth at the same time,” Ahmed says. “Today, all of the various subsidiaries within the bank are using Temenos. As we add more companies, we can get them onto the same system and have them up and running the next day. All it takes is a small configuration in accounting.”
These multiple companies leverage two data centers. “Because of our architecture, we have high availability,” Ahmed says. “We can switch from one data center to another in just a click, with zero issues and zero downtime.”
By operating so efficiently, Bank Albilad has grown from a three billion Saudi Arabian Riyal (SAR) business at its inception into the 17 billion SAR organization that it is today. In fact, today it is one of the top five banks in the country in terms of its product offerings across its corporate and retail businesses. Its commitment to digital is paying off, too: in 2023, it achieved a 14% year-on-year increase in mobile app users, with 71% of new retail customers joining digitally*.
We couldn’t have achieved this success and scalability without the stability and flexibility of the Temenos banking platform. It’s certainly a long-term relationship. Over the years, we’ve had so much support and commitment from the Temenos team. They have been so open to our requests; we cannot fault anything about the company.”
Ahmed AlZikan, Chief IT Governance Officer at Bank Albilad
A foundation for the future
Bank Albilad will continue to expand its use of Temenos solutions in the months and years to come. “We are aware that, to remain at the forefront of product innovation, we must continue to invest in our systems and processes,” Ahmed says. “That’s why we have renewed our contract with Temenos for 15 years.”
Overall, Ahmed wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Temenos to other banks like his: “In our opinion, it’s the easiest way to generate, deploy, and maintain products.”
Our investments in Temenos products have allowed us to transition into a modern, digital bank with improved speed, reliability, and flexibility. These performance benefits are key enablers of our success.”
Ahmed AlZikan, Chief IT Governance Officer at Bank Albilad
Bank Albilad
Pioneering digital banking in Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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.
Bank Albilad
Pioneering digital banking in Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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.”
Bank Albilad
Pioneering digital banking in Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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
Bank Albilad
Pioneering digital banking in Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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
Bank Albilad
Pioneering digital banking in Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
At a Glance
• 50% decrease in Turnaround Time (TAT) in just a couple of weeks to allow shorter time-to-market for innovative banking services
• Became one of the fastest growing retail banks in Egypt
• Nurturing the next generation of Egyptian banking talent with Temenos Academy
Société Arabe Internationale de Banque (saib) is among the fastest growing banks in Egypt. Headquartered in Cairo, saib provides retail and Islamic banking products that help individuals to achieve their financial goals, and corporate and business banking services to support companies embarking on industrial, agricultural, real estate, foreign trade, and commercial ventures. With 37 branches, the bank manages total assets of USD 4.5 billion.
Moustafa Marzouk, Chief Information Officer at saib explains: “We pursue an ambitious growth strategy and aim to cement our status as one of the leading financial service providers in the country. For example, we are currently constructing seven new branches and increasing our network of ATMs to expand our coverage within Egypt. We want to continue to reach more customers and grow our share of our domestic market.”
Addressing new challenges and opportunities
In recent years, the Central Bank of Egypt has encouraged the development of state-of-the-art digital banking infrastructure to satisfy growing consumer demand for more flexible and user-friendly financial services. This shift has created valuable opportunities for banks like saib. However, to avoid falling behind nimble competitors, saib must move fast to offer best-in-class digital banking services.
Moustafa Marzouk continues: “Many Egyptian banks are investing heavily in building their suite of digital banking services, and that makes for a very competitive market. Speed and innovation are essential for us to stand apart from other banks: we need to go to market quickly to gain first-mover advantage, and offer cutting-edge products that meet the requirements of different market segments.”
There is also a growing fintech sector within Egypt, presenting another golden opportunity for saib. Moustafa Marzouk adds: “We are seeing more fintechs emerging here, with new ways of delivering financial services to consumers. To capitalize on this trend, we need to forge partnerships with fintechs to harness their ideas, and to enhance our offerings by integrating their solutions with our banking environment.”
Another challenge centers on the availability of financial talent within Egypt. To push forward with the digital transformation agenda, banks like saib need the right knowledge and experience among their ranks—but traditionally there has been a limited numbers of young professionals skilled in digital banking. To remedy this, saib aimed to implement processes to nurture and develop a new generation of finance leaders.
Working with a best-of-breed core banking platform
To support its growth journey, saib has forged a long-term partnership with Temenos. The bank was the first in Egypt to implement Temenos as its core banking solution back in 2001, and in the 20 years since it has continued to upgrade the platform to ensure access to the latest functionality and capabilities. As a mark of the success of the collaboration, saib recently renewed its license agreements with Temenos.
“When we looked for a new core platform, Temenos stood out as the most feature-rich and scalable option available. Just as important, we were impressed with Temenos as a company: they offered deep knowledge of the Egyptian financial sector, combined with extensive global experience helping leading banks to succeed. Deciding to continue the partnership has been an easy choice, as their vision and roadmap for modern digital banking solutions aligns perfectly with our own objectives.”
Moustafa Marzouk, Chief Information Officer at saib
saib makes extensive use of Temenos core banking across its retail, corporate, and business banking operations. The solution supports high-speed transaction processing, account servicing, product development work, and much more. Significantly, the latest versions of the Temenos platform provide open API capabilities, which will enable the bank to integrate seamlessly with fintech solutions.
In particular, saib harnesses the Arrangement Architecture module within Temenos core banking to create customized banking services for each market segment, as Moustafa Marzouk confirms: “The Arrangement Architecture gives us lots of freedom to develop a different service proposition for each demographic—from small businesses in need of capital to consumers looking for credit cards with unique rewards.”
He continues: “Temenos core banking offers exceptional flexibility and ease of use. Our developers and business users can create new products and services without support from our IT teams, which is a major advantage. Our users have become keen advocates for the Temenos platform.”
Increasing customer base and market share
With Temenos core banking, Saib has gained the speed and agility it needs to achieve lasting success in the Egyptian market. Intuitive development tools in the platform enable the bank to cut time-to-market for new products and services. It takes now just a couple of weeks, which means a 50% decrease in Turnaround Time (TAT). Recently, saib has launched many innovative offerings—including award-winning credit cards, mobile wallets, and a first-of-a-kind electronic payment wristband—that are helping it to differentiate itself from other banks and to support the national drive towards a modern banking ecosystem.
“Consumers expect more than ever from their banks, but with Temenos we can adapt quickly and make sure we bring smarter, more tailored services to market. This helps to position saib as one of the most forward-thinking and fastest growing banks in Egypt, and will ensure that we attract more and more customers”
Moustafa Marzouk, Chief Information Officer at saib
Indeed, from 2019 saib saw an incredible increase of retail customers and product sales, compared to 2018 when the bank had nearly no retail banking portfolio. Auto loan was one of saib’s top selling retail product in 2020.
Training the next generation of banking leaders
The partnership between saib and Temenos extends beyond technology into financial talent identification and development. Together, the bank and Temenos have created a scheme that enables university graduates in Egypt to complete in-depth training courses that increase their knowledge of the ongoing digital transformation of the banking sector, and the role of new solutions.
“Working with the Temenos Academy, we have created a phased learning program that helps graduates to understand the issues facing Egyptian banks today, and the right strategies for the future,” adds Moustafa Marzouk. “We are closing the talent gap and training the next generation of finance professionals, who will have the skills and expertise needed to lead our bank and ensure success in the years ahead.”
Becoming a more agile and competitive institution
The partnership between saib and Temenos continues to go from strength to strength. Currently, the bank is working with Temenos on another upgrade of the core platform, which will provide additional tools and capabilities for developing digital banking services. And in the medium- and long-term, saib also intends to work with Temenos to plan and build new electronic payments solutions.
“We have great trust and confidence in Temenos as a partner. Over 20 years, they have always delivered for us, whether it has been their vision and expertise or their world-class banking technologies. With the support of Temenos, we have become a more agile, competitive, and innovative financial institution, and we are leading the way in the digital transformation of the Egyptian banking sector.”
Moustafa Marzouk, Chief Information Officer at saib
Bank Albilad
Pioneering digital banking in Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
At a Glance
• Temenos Core deployed in just four months and digital in nine months
• Time for new product developments cut to hours
• Customer base grown 19x from 700k to 13.2m
• Able to onboard tens of thousands of customer every day
• Loan portfolio growing by 50% year-on-year
Cooperative Bank of Oromia (Coopbank) is an Ethiopian bank established by farmers 19 years ago. Their influence remains strong; more than half of the bank’s shareholders are still farmers, and it remains focused on the MSME farming and agricultural sector, which contributes more than 80% of the national economy, yet suffers from high levels of financial exclusion.
Coopbank is well on its way to fulfilling its goal to be the leading private bank in Ethiopia by 2025. It is already one of the country’s most profitable banks, with a total asset value of more than ETB 139.56 billion, operates 745 branches, employs more than 15,000 people, and has more than 13 million account holders, covering retail, corporate and institutional clients.
Nobody left behind
At the heart of this ambition is a mission to transform livelihoods and empower communities. “That is ultimately what we mean by innovation,” explains Aman Semir, the bank’s Vice President for Technologies and Digital Banking. “It’s really about solving people’s problems.” That mission goes hand-in-hand with a focus on ESG. “We’re early on in that journey, but we’re starting to see the fruits of our framework. For example, around 100 branches are now fully powered by solar and wind energy.”
Half of those branches are containers that have been modified. “We locate them in remote places where there is no electricity, and provide free Internet. For the people around there, they have become more than a bank branch. They are education and community gathering centers.”
Aman calls this the bank’s ‘phygital’ approach
You can’t be a digital bank without first educating people. So we need the physical place where this can happen.In parallel, it is building for the era of open banking. We’ve leveraging open APIs to integrate any third party to our bank.”
Aman Semir, Vice President Technologies and Digital Banking at Cooperative Bank of Oromia
It is this dual track – of both readying for future opportunities while ensuring nobody gets left behind – that marks the Coopbank out.
A great fit from the start
To deliver this strategy, Coopbank turned to Temenos, deploying the core banking platform in 2016. “Everyone had become frustrated by our legacy system. Staff were having to stay in the office until midnight to record the day’s work, such as new accounts opened. You just can’t grow with that sort of inefficiency.”
The bank found its way to Temenos through a combination of Gartner ranking and reviews, RFP response, customer references and personal experiences of employees. It has not looked back. “From the start, Temenos was a really great fit. The past six to seven years have proved that our choice was the right one.”
The evidence for that is everywhere. In that time the bank has grown 19x its customer base from 700,000 to 13.2 million, and is now growing its asset value by 40% year-on-year. Loan portfolio has been growing 50% year-on-year for the past six years, and deposits have increased 39% to 42% in the same timeframe
In the face of sharp growth, the platform has proved scalable and flexible. It can accommodate anything. We can come up with any new product, any configuration or third-party integration, and the system just handles it all.”
Aman Semir, Vice President Technologies and Digital Banking at Cooperative Bank of Oromia
Aman paints a before and after comparison to illustrate his point. “Before Temenos, just to come up with a simple saving product would have taken us a long time. We were forced to go to our vendors and wait for them to configure their systems. But now we can do that in just a few hours, both in-house development and third-party integrations.
Powerful partnerships
For these projects the bank accessed the Temenos certified partner network to source its implementation partners – USI for the initial implementation, Inlaks for the upgrade, and Xpert Digital to enable Temenos digital.
“It’s always been a smooth and fast process – just four months for the initial deployment, and nine months for Temenos digital.” Aman recalls that, back in 2016, the bank chose not to involve Temenos in the implementation, but instead used the model bank configuration. “The scope and flexibility of that template meant when we upgraded, there was nothing to change. It was almost too good to believe!”
Deepening the partnership
As well as upgrading the core banking platform to the latest version in 2023, Coopbank also added Temenos Trade Finance, which it uses to offer interest-free banking to Islamic customers.
With Trade Finance we have enabled automations that have reduced processing times, so that now the back-office runs more smoothly.”
Aman Semir, Vice President Technologies and Digital Banking at Cooperative Bank of Oromia
The bank has also enabled Temenos digital to its suite. “It’s brought customer onboarding to the next level. We’re now able to onboard tens of thousands of customers every day, and give them a world-class experience.” It means the bank can be confident in making ambitious projections. “In the next 12 months we aim to onboard more than five million customers.” Aman explains.
On the way to the top
Aman explains that Temenos has become so important to the bank that the partnership is seen as one of the critical halves of its operation, alongside leadership. As such, it plans to double-down on its investment. “Even though we upgraded the platform just a year ago, we’re already considering adding more modules, so we will probably not wait another three to four years to do another upgrade, but get on with that very, very soon.”
Aman is confident about what that will mean for the bank’s future.
Seven years ago, when we started with Temenos, we were ranked number 11-13 nationally in most banking parameters. Now, we are a number three or four bank, and we are improving all the time. We’re a proud and happy Temenos customer.”
Aman Semir, Vice President Technologies and Digital Banking at Cooperative Bank of Oromi
We partnered successfully with
Inlaks
Established in 1982 as a division of Inlaks Plc, Inlaks has grown consistently to reach the leadership position it has attained today.
Xpert Digital
Xpert Digital (XD) is a Certified Temenos Services Partner specializing in delivering exceptional digital experiences by creatively nurturing innovation with technology.
Bank Albilad
Pioneering digital banking in Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Demand for digital banking has surged in Malaysia since the COVID-19 pandemic, as lockdown measures have prevented citizens from accessing branch-based services. To meet the need for easy-to-use online and mobile banking, financial services group KAF planned a new suite of digital lending services. The group will harness the Temenos Banking Cloud to develop and launch new conventional and Islamic financing offerings, including seamless onboarding and origination, and fast, automated loan processing.
We chose Temenos as we needed the agility and speed of a SaaS solution, and only the Temenos Banking Cloud offered the breadth of financial services functionality to meet our current and future needs. Critically, it enables us to bring together digital lending for conventional and Islamic products on a single platform and seamlessly extend to full digital banking services. With Temenos, we will lead the way in bringing new and exciting digital financial products and services to all Malaysians.”
Thariq Usman Ahman, Deputy CEO at KAF Investment Bank
Using the Temenos platform, KAF will be able to innovate quickly and scale efficiently, incrementally bringing to market a full range of digital fund management, investment banking, and stockbroking services. This will help individuals and businesses to rebuild prosperity and recover from the significant economic hardship caused by the pandemic.
The road ahead for Digi Banks
Listen to the conversation with Rafiza Ghazali, Director of Digital Banking at KAF Investment Bank, and host Swapnil Deshmukh, Regional Director for Digital Banking at Temenos talking about the changing bank landscape, customer expectations from digibanks, digibank success, and the partnerships between digibanks and other fintechs.
Bank Albilad
Pioneering digital banking in Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
To increase its market share, Bank of Khyber aims to offer differentiated, personalized Islamic, retail, small business, and corporate banking services. But with existing legacy systems limiting innovation, the bank launched a digital transformation program, deploying Temenos core banking, Temenos digital banking, Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation, and Temenos Analytics solutions. Working with Temenos business partner Systems, Bank of Khyber employed a hybrid implementation model. By combining on-site and remote engagements, the bank achieved a seamless move despite the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Temenos solutions will provide enhanced core, digital, fraud detection, and analytics capabilities, helping the bank launch new products rapidly, offer frictionless online experiences, and attain its long-term growth objectives.
Temenos has a global reputation for providing robust, innovative financial software solutions and has an extensive presence all over the world. This implementation will provide the leap forward we need to enhance our market share and deliver better services and products for our customers in the 21st century.”
Mr. Ihsan Ullah Ihsan, Managing Director at Bank of Khyber
We partnered successfully with