Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

At a Glance

• Big bang go-live of Temenos core, payments hub and wealth management on the same day for retail, corporate and private business lines

• Close of business reporting reduced to 3-4hrs from day-one

• Faster time to onboard volume-based customers

• Divide the number of client pricing conditions by up to 6

BIL (Banque Internationale à Luxembourg) is the oldest bank in Luxembourg, and the second largest in the country, with more than 200,000 customers. It offers retail, private, corporate and institutional banking as well as financial market services. As a sign of its importance, half of the country’s financial institutions use BIL’s infrastructure to process payments, totalling 25m per year (or a daily average of 200k). BIL also has dedicated wealth management offices in Switzerland and China. It has assets under management of EUR 43.8 billion, employs more than 2,000 people.

In 2020 it began a five-year strategic plan, with the stated aim to modernize its core banking system and simplify its operations in order to develop new and improved services for its clients.

Turning challenges into opportunities

That plan is also designed to make the bank more adaptable to changing regulations and banking standards, both at a national and international level. For the spokesperson at the bank, these dynamics are both an opportunity and a challenge. “Sometimes it consumes a lot of our investment capacity, limiting our resources to innovate for our clients. However, the requirements of the regulator and the changes to our infrastructure pushes us to improve data quality, transparency and speed of payments.”

This nuanced view can also be seen in the spokesperson at the bank’s assessment of fintechs and other market entrants, where competition is needed and opportunities can be explored to partner.

Reframing innovation

For BIL, the ultimate aim is innovation; what is the best route to developing new services and bringing them to market? Though the answer to that question changes over the years, history tells you that the bank regularly gets it right. BIL was one of the first banks in Luxembourg to propose a web-banking solution, to use AI to support credit decisions, to make strides in cross-border instant payments (in collaboration with Swift), and more recently has been at the cutting edge of developments in CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) and open banking.

While this spirit of innovation remains at the heart of BIL, it is now complemented with a commitment to ESG. That has been partly driven by regulatory obligations, says the spokesperson at the bank, but also the belief that ESG principles are a route to improving every aspect of the bank. As such, ESG is seen not simply in terms of carbon footprint measures and progress in diversity, but “as a whole bank framework that informs how we are organised, how we develop products, and how we interact and help our clients.” It extends to supporting customers with their own ESG journey. “We have clients in various industries who need to go through a major transition.”

Seeking scalability

BIL recognized that its ability to innovate had become compromised by outdated technology. the spokesperson at the bank recalls: “We had a 30-plus-year-old legacy system that we’d built layer after layer, year after year. It had become like a plate of spaghetti.” Amongst the issues that created was scalability. “I’ve had to refuse some services to clients because we could not onboard the volumes they were bringing.” Increasing operational costs and a shortage of qualified managers (“Who knows about mainframe technologies anymore!”) added to the case to modernize.

The bank considered a number of approaches. Replatforming was dismissed as being unceasing, and a best-of-breed build as being too costly and complex. Instead, BIL decided to invest in a new core banking platform, and turned to Gartner’s and Forrester’s rankings to draw up its shortlist. And from there, it selected Temenos.

We took the Temenos core for a few reasons. Its functional coverage was impressive, and the ability to easily switch on and configure new modules. That flexibility delivers scalability, which is super important when you’re operating in a fast evolving market.”

Spokesperson at the bank

He also points to the technical superiority of the platform, and the relationship that had been cultivated with the Temenos team through the procurement process. “We had a great synergy with their people.”

Confidence and trust

BIL took the brave decision to go for a ‘big bang’ deployment. “On the same day we replaced our legacy technology with Temenos core, Temenos Payments Hub (TPH) and Temenos Wealth Front Office, for our retail, corporate and private business lines! You only get to do that if you are totally confident in the new technology.”

The implementation program was completed in October 2023. It involved Deloitte and LTIMindtree and included user testing, business operability and readiness tests, took around 20 months. “Temenos was also a great support throughout”, says the spokesperson at the bank, recalling how some of the software development team in India even relocated to BIL’s offices for up to six months to work on the project. “Their dedication was incredible. They were a big reason why we went live successfully.”

Breaking new ground

A spokesperson at the bank points to performance as one area where the bank has seen an immediate impact.

From the very first day after go-live, we have had a constant, three-hour cycle for the close of business. And what has been really impressive is that every month on the 5th day, when we charge the monthly account management fees to our clients, close of business reporting is faster, even though the system is working harder.”

Spokesperson at the bank

The bank now has the scalability to onboard high-volume clients that it had previously turned away, and to extend its payments solutions. It also has the flexibility to segment pricing for different clients. “We have been able to divide by three or four the number of pricing conditions for our clients; for wealth management we have divided by three, and for retail and corporate by five or six. The structure of the pricing system modules allows us to work in a matrix to rationalize our approach. The complexity for our finance teams to deal with this segmentation has improved.”

Scale that improvement across the 200,000 payments that the bank processes on average every day, and the efficiencies become amplified.

BIL is also excited about how the new platform can help it break new ground in the alternative investment sector. “The fund industry in Luxembourg is very developed, and our institutional clients are increasingly creative. We now have the means to support them in building more diversified portfolios.”

Everything we need

It all points to the higher potential for growth.

Ultimately, Temenos is helping us to be more customer-centric; that means creating products that are relevant to our clients and providing a better experience consistently. Now we have everything we need to grow our volumes.”

Spokesperson at the bank

TPH will also be crucial to the bank developing new instant payment (sending and receiving) solutions, which regulators have set ambitious implementation timings for. “We know that TPH can do that.”

A spokesperson at the bank predicts that mutualization will become an increasing revenue stream for the bank.

Temenos core makes it far easier for us to co-create with financial partners. We are moving from a bank that only sells products to clients to a bank that also sells infrastructure to partners. Take payments; we already support half the banking industry in Luxembourg to process their payments. Now we have the means to develop more of these sorts of opportunities.”

Spokesperson at the bank

It points to a long-term partnership. “It’s like a marriage”, says the spokesperson at the bank. “We’re creating a relationship for the next 20-25 years at least. And all the great moments are still ahead of us.”

We partnered successfully with

One-Stop Pure-Play Global Partner for all Temenos Solutions, System Integrations and Digital Services

Deloitte is an eminent leader in digital business transformation, blending global reach with strong local expertise and the Temenos Centre of Excellence in Luxembourg and Poland.

Region

Europe

Solutions

Core Banking
Payments
Wealth

Sector

Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking
Wealth Management

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

At a Glance

• Reduced customer onboarding time by 70%

• 130% customer acquisition increase

• 200% increase in the number of customers opening deposit accounts online

• Increased operational efficiency by 40%

• New mobile app response times averaging less than 1 sec

• App has achieved a 4.9 star rating on App Store

Founded in 2013, Vietnam Public Commercial Joint Stock Bank (PVcomBank) is the result of a merger between Petro Vietnam Finance Joint Stock Corporation (PVFC) and Western Commercial Joint Stock Bank (WesternBank). Over the years, PVcomBank has expanded to become the fifth-largest digital bank in Vietnam. Thanks to its commitment to deliver ‘Banking for Everyone’, it now serves over three million customers across various segments in Retail, SME, commercial and corporate.

Innovation is a priority for this bank, which is why it rewards curiosity and experimentation. It is not afraid of failure – its culture can be described as “when things go wrong, lessons can be learned.”. That’s why it has established its Venture Studio, a safe space where start-ups are free to explore new concepts and take risks. In addition, the bank’s data sandbox fosters innovation by providing a secure and safe place to experiment with data and uncover new opportunities that can benefit customers and employees alike.

Prioritizing mobile

Mobile banking has long been the primary channel for PVcomBank’s retail business. However, in 2022, it realized its mobile service was falling short of customer expectations.

“Our mobile business was growing – we’d acquired a million new customers in 2022,” explains Trinh Vinh Hien, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank. “Unfortunately, our customer satisfaction score for mobile banking was 60%. We knew we had to make improvements.”

PVcomBank’s customers reported slow performance and poor engagement in the mobile app. At the same time, it was taking the bank more than four weeks to add new features to a product or service. “The limitation of our traditional architecture and legacy technologies had suppressed innovation and slowed our business growth,” Trinh says.

Trinh and his team realized they needed an advanced omnichannel digital banking platform to facilitate a seamless customer experience across any channel and through every step of the customer lifecycle. So, they set about looking for a suitable solution.

Seeking a solution

“We spent around six months evaluating potential vendors,” Trinh says. “We assessed how the various solutions’ end-to-end capabilities might fit with our digital service footprint and compared the scalability, configurability, security, and overall architectures.”

The most suitable solution, however, was on PVcomBank’s doorstep. The bank had already been running on Temenos core for retail and corporate banking for 7 years and was also leveraging Temenos Trade Finance. So, when it discovered Temenos digital banking, it seemed like the perfect fit.

We’d already been benefiting from Temenos’s highly automated processes that have allowed us to increase efficiencies and reduce manual tasks. We were delighted when we found that Temenos digital banking could meet our requirements, too.”

Trinh Vinh Hien, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank

He points to the impact it has had on Trade Finance. “With the smart banking capabilities of Temenos digital platform, we can now digitize Temenos Trade Finance, meaning we can further increase efficiencies, reduce manual tasks and bring this service into online channels for customers.”

Trinh was particularly confident that it would receive adequate support from the software vendor. “There’s a strong Temenos footprint in Vietnam, so this, along with our previous experience working with the company, assured us that we would get all the support we required to accelerate the implementation and get up and running quickly,” he explains.

Recognizing that its existing legacy architecture would hamper a fast implementation, PVcomBank leveraged the Temenos API framework.

By transforming our existing enterprise layers into open APIs, with integration between the enterprise service bus and Temenos digital banking’s backend, we could de-couple our legacy infrastructure and benefit from Temenos digital banking’s cloud-native architecture.”

Trinh Vinh Hien, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank

This approach to integration enabled PVcomBank to achieve faster time-to-value and helped it operate more efficiently, streamline processes with increased automation, and deliver a faster, frictionless customer experience.

A successful launch

PVcomBank successfully launched its new mobile banking solution in April 2024. “We have already migrated one million retail customers who now benefit from a consistent journey across any device and on any channel,” Trinh says. “We expect to extend the service to all of our three million customers by June 2025, and we also hope to onboard at least 500,000 new customers this year through a B2B2C model.”

Users of PVcomBank’s new mobile app can take advantage of fast and simple onboarding, AI-powered assistance, personalized offers based on their spending behaviors, and more. Slow performance is now a thing of the past, with response times averaging less than a second.

The customer onboarding time has reduced by 70%. At the same time, we’ve witnessed a 130% increase in customer acquisition using the new digital platform and 200% increase in the number of customers opening deposit accounts online.”

Trinh Vinh Hien, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank

The benefits of Temenos are not just felt by customers. “By deploying Temenos digital banking in a cloud-agnostic architecture, our operational efficiency has increased by 40%,” Trinh says. “We’re also now able to add new features to a product or service in a matter of days. This enables us to keep up with the demands of our customers and remain competitive.”

As a result, overall customer satisfaction has improved significantly. In fact, the new Temenos-powered app has received a 4.9-star rating on the App Store and a 4.6-star rating on Google Play based on feedback from thousands of reviews.

A Temenos-powered future

Trinh is quick to confirm that PVcomBank’s decision to build its mobile app on Temenos digital was the right one.

Our relationship with Temenos has been exponentially valuable for us,” he says. “The company consistently met our high expectations and its ongoing commitment to updating its platforms has been crucial to us. It means we can deliver an exceptional experience to our customers and stay ahead in a very competitive industry.”

Trinh Vinh Hien, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank

As a result, PVcomBank is certain that it will develop its relationship with Temenos further in the months and years to come. “We have big plans ahead, and we are very confident that Temenos will support us, no matter what we decide to do,” Trinh says. “The newest version of Temenos core banking has a lot of fantastic new capabilities, and we cannot wait to upgrade so that we can further strengthen our position as a leader in Vietnam’s financial services market.”

Region

Asia Pacific

Solutions

Core Banking
Digital Front Office

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

At a Glance

• 100,000 transactions daily

• Response times decreased by 50%

• Faster customer onboarding

• 1.2 million app downloads since launch

Launched in 2016 Zain Cash is a mobile wallet business licensed in Iraq, growing 150% Year-on-year.

The mobile wallet product supports both SMEs and consumers to have easy and convenient access to payment, such as collections and payroll services; money transfer services nationally and internationally as well as bill payment, with more than 10,000 agents across the country providing deposit and withdrawal services.

Zain Cash has rapidly expanded, achieving over 1.2 million app downloads.

Yazen Altimimi, CEO, Zain Cash, explains: “ZainCash attract customers with effortless onboarding and innovative and accessible payment solutions designed for everyday convenience.”

Zain Cash has a network of agents across Iraq, which could be a mobile phone shop, local store, or a gas station. Agents are both cash-in and cash-out locations as well as a registration location, which has the potential to improve and increase banking accessibility and ease.

Building a new future

Innovation for Zain Cash is about leveraging technologies to provide better customer experiences. This is in evidence in their product, which utilizes face ID and iris identification, incorporating AI to improve the customer experience and enhance security.

This appetite for innovation has become more important than ever. While Zain Cash’s only product is currently a mobile wallet, the organization’s vision and ambitions are expanding, with hopes to become a digital bank in the near future. That opportunity also presents a number of challenges. Iraq’s banking sector is very regulated and complex. It is also a very competitive industry. There are 70 banks in Iraq, and more standalone providers of wallets and payment solutions. Against this backdrop is an increasingly sophisticated consumer. Yazen explains: “Iraqis are not the consumer of five or ten years ago. They are now very tech-savvy, and mobile first. As a result, they’re expecting the same level of digital services they could find in more developed countries.”

To deliver this future, Zain Cash deployed Temenos core and Temenos Payments Hub (TPH) in March 2024 with Prema Consulting as the implementation partner. This transition included migrating data and balances from 700,000 wallets.

Yazen says: “In March, we relaunched all our tech stack, so the Temenos core banking platform connected to the middleware TIBCO. We were the first to perform this connection. It was a rebirth for Zain Cash.”

Another area Zain Cash wants to focus on innovating is compliance, risk, financial crime and management of AML all from within the Temenos platform.

Scaling ethically

Before moving to Temenos and TPH, Zain Cash had a mobile wallet solution, but did not feel it fulfilled their vision and plan for the future.

We wanted to scale very quickly. Zain Cash was already processing over 100,000 wallet transactions a day. Regulation in the country and consumer behaviour are both changing. We wanted a system that is agile so we can introduce new products easily and scale quickly.”

Yazen Altimimi, Chief Executive Officer at Zain Cash

Scalability in terms of product development has been matched by the ability to onboard more customers. “With our legacy system, we were very limited in adding new customers. The more we added, the heavier the system became, which compromised performance. Now with Temenos we don’t have that friction. And because we can easily scale, we are able to push our marketing campaigns to drive new sign-ups and improve retention.”

For Zain Cash, growing at scale is also about growing sustainably. And according to Yazen, Temenos is helping them to achieve that too. “We wanted a system that is reliable and sustainable for the future. We have plans to focus on introducing lending products, and that’s something that Temenos does very well. Moving to Temenos means it’s very easy for us to introduce new products very quickly, whether for today or for five years from now.”

While growing at scale and at speed, Zain Cash has implemented ESG principles from the start, especially around its environmental impact.

Being and acting ethically, as well as always thinking about diversity, are important to Zain Cash. In the end, the products we have reflect our organization and our mindset.”

Yazen Altimimi, Chief Executive Officer at Zain Cash

Improving efficiency and reliability

Zain Cash has seen improvements in operational efficiency and reliability since making the move to Temenos, and positive customer feedback has given them more confidence to increase marketing and product development.

Yazen says: “When we launched with Temenos, we were impressed by the operational efficiency that we were able to unlock. We found that work was much more seamless and reliable. There has been no interruption to our daily payment volume of 100,000 transactions, onboarding customers is now faster, and the response times have improved by 50%. We’re also seeing great feedback from the consumers who use our product.”

According to Yazen, Zain Cash intends to keep the momentum going.

We want to utilise and leverage the system very quickly. We’ve already kicked off work on our lending products, and we’re hoping to launch new products by the end of the year as a result.”

Yazen Altimimi, Chief Executive Officer at Zain Cash

Looking to the future

Yazen concludes: “Temenos is quicker, more reliable, scalable, agile, and empowers innovation. And there’s still a lot to learn. It’s just the beginning of our journey with this partnership. We depend a lot on Temenos already, and we’re keen to learn more about Temenos models and how we can leverage them in the future. We have big visions for the future and achieving it will only be possible with Temenos.”

“As a leader of Zain Cash for the past eight years, and as someone that has been operating in the financial service sector in Iraq, which is such a challenging market, I believe Temenos is the best product for anyone who has a vision to provide modern financial services, whether in Iraq, in the region, or across the world.”

We partnered successfully with

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

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Core Banking
Payments

Sector

Business Banking
Challenger Banks
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

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

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

Cristina Mahika-Voiconi, General Manager at Libra Internet Bank

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

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

Spokesperson at Libra Internet Bank

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

Region

Europe

Solutions

Core Banking
Financial Crime Mitigation
Payments

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

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

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

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

Anssi Huhta, CEO at Aktia

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

Region

Europe

Solutions

Core Banking
Payments

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

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

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

Qamber Al Mulla, Chairman of Africa and Gulf Bank

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

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

Nadeem Lodhi, Chief Executive Officer, Africa and Gulf Bank

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Core Banking
Payments

Sector

Business Banking
Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

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

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

Ho Nam Tien, Vice Chair and General Director, LPBank

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

Region

Asia Pacific

Solutions

Core Banking

Sector

Corporate & Commercial Banking
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

At a Glance

● 4 months to implement Temenos core banking platform

● 50-70% faster timeframes for new product launches

● 6 months to launch new online mortgage products

Next Bank is a native digital challenger bank headquartered in Taipei, serving retail customers. It launched in January 2022 and is one of only three banks in recent years to have obtained a digital banking license in Taiwan. It is committed to creating banking services that customers may never have imagined with innovative thinking, design aesthetics, and friendly experiences. Its main shareholder is not from a traditional banking background, but instead is Taiwan’s largest telecommunications company – Chunghwa Telecom. That goes some way to explain its challenger mentality.

The speed with which Next Bank has captured market attention will encourage Taiwan’s older banks to innovate, predicts Eric Lee, its Chief Information Officer. “Many banks in Taiwan have been established for a long time and are relatively rigid. For them, transformation is a heavy burden.” He offers mortgages as an example of the lack of innovation in the sector. “In the traditional housing loan experience, customers need to go into a bank branch to complete their application. With Next Bank, customers can do everything on their mobile. I think this is a pioneering work.”

Rapid launch

This new online mortgage offer was built and launched in just six months, using the Temenos core banking platform. “Our entire mortgage business, from project approval to overall launch, took only six months,” explains Eric. “That speed is a huge competitive advantage, and will become more so as we launch new products into market.” That short timeframe is largely down to the rapid deployment of the Temenos core banking platform, which took just four months. “We were so impressed by the quick and smooth implementation of the Temenos core banking platform. It meant we could get to work earlier on building our mortgage offer,” adds Eric.

Eric highlights that the speed with which Next Bank launched its new mortgage service has created a stir in the sector. Shortly after the launch, Taiwan Bank, the nation’s largest bank, sent one of their top designers to Next to exchange lessons on how to create a 100% online mortgage product.

This was a great endorsement of the approach and progress that Next Bank has made is such a short period of time, and illustrates how the Temenos core banking platforms is front of mind for any bank when it comes to creating new digital services.”

Eric Lee, Chief Information Officer at Next Bank

Configurability the key

Mortgages are just one service in Next Bank’s new product portfolio, alongside accounts, loans, and insurance. It has all been built and runs on the Temenos core banking platform. Key to the choice of Temenos was the configurability of the platform, explains Eric. “Like every country, Taiwan has specific regulations that differ from other countries. Off-the-shelf solutions would have been very painful for us to customize and integrate. With Temenos this capability is built-in, so launching a new product is much faster.” As an example, the six months it took to launch its online mortgage product represents a 50-70% reduction in the typical timeframes for these projects.

Next Bank will be making the most of this capability. Its next product offers—corporate management and wealth management—are expected to launch very soon, with foreign exchange planned for Q1 2024.

More capabilities under one roof

The breadth of integrated capabilities included on the Temenos core banking platform has made it easier and faster for Next Bank to quickly secure a market presence.

Not yet two years old, Next Bank already offers the most complete product line of any digital bank in Taiwan, thanks to the extensive choice of modules and the ease of integrating them with our existing products. So unlike other banks, our IT team is never a block to the business.”

Eric Lee, Chief Information Officer at Next Bank

The assurance of experience

Reputation was another key reason why Next Bank selected Temenos. Eric notes that Temenos was able to demonstrate deep knowledge of the Taiwanese market and a successful track record of deployments with other banks in the region. For example, in 2022, Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank appointed Temenos to replace its legacy core systems. The success of that deployment gave Eric and his team the proof they were looking for. And plans for Temenos to open a dedicated support hub in Taiwan have provided further reassurance.

What really stands out about Temenos is how it balances the advantages of global scale with the forensic knowledge of specific markets.”

Eric Lee, Chief Information Officer at Next Bank

Other institutions in Taiwan are looking at the Next Bank story with interest. “The balance of standardization and configuration of the Temenos composable banking platform delivers the agility, speed, and cost-effectiveness that can be a good option for legacy and neobanks alike,” says Eric. It also means that separate bank branches can use the same instance of the platform, rather than needing to deploy their own core system. And the extra competition will be a good thing, he adds. “In this way, we can have more industry exchanges, which is helpful for talent training and innovating the ecosystem.”

Region

Asia Pacific

Solutions

Core Banking

Sector

Challenger Banks
Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

BanCoppel is one of the largest organizations in Mexico, which includes brands such as Afore Coppel and Tiendas Coppel. BanCoppel was the first to offer loans to Mexicans who had no possibility of proving their income, providing them with microloans for small purchases with store credit since 1941. To continue its technological transformation, driving modern banking services, the bank selected Temenos core banking platform. The implementation of this platform will not only provide the bank with greater efficiency and sustainability but will also support BanCoppel’s digital transformation project.

BanCoppel will benefit from Temenos’ proven technology leadership, extensive experience in Mexico, and strong reputation with existing customers. The Temenos core banking platform will enable the bank to continue to scale efficiently as well as offer an integrated ecosystem of easy and accessible banking services.

“Historically, the mass market in Mexico has been underserved by conventional banking, with much less access to credit and financial services. Our objective with this partnership with Temenos is to continue being the favorite bank of the popular class in Mexico, providing solutions that improve their quality of life. This transformation project will increase efficiency by creating an open ecosystem with easy integration through APIs, which will allow us to create easy, simple and more accessible banking services. Temenos has a proven reputation in Latin America and supports banks with a mission of financial inclusion – we look forward to collaborating together and creating a new era of banking.”

Juan Manuel Fernández Islas, Director of IT, Digital Transformation & Operations at BanCoppel

Region

Latin America

Solutions

Core Banking

Sector

Retail Banking

Banque Internationale a Luxembourg SA

Building for a new era of collaborations

Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

At a Glance

● Reduce onboarding to loan application completion to 5 minutes from days

● 40% lower operational costs

● Time to launch new products to market cut by third

● 25% increase in customer base since launch

● 80% improvement in workflows and efficiencies

In just over a decade, Ijarah Finance has become an established part of the Saudi financial landscape. It provides Sharia-compliant integrated financial leasing services to 50,000 customers across the Kingdom, growth that has been built on a commitment to honesty, customer service and innovation. Now, these values have been applied to ‘Mora Finance’ a new digital lending platform built in partnership with Temenos. Mora’s easy, fast, and safe financing solution has attracted more than 10,000 registrations in four months, since launching in March 2023. It includes cash loans and product financing; with other business products to follow later in 2023.

At Ijarah Finance, we are committed to transforming the way people manage their personal finances. Our vision is to become a leading digital personal finance company, empowering individuals to take control of their financial well-being and achieve their dreams. We’re leveraging the latest technology to provide innovative solutions that simplify financial management and planning. Our customers are at the heart of everything we do. We’re dedicated to providing exceptional user experiences and personalized support.”

Fayez A. Al-Fayez, CEO at Ijarah Finance

Empowering citizens

Launched in 2016, Saudi Arabia is now well into its ambitious ‘Vision 2030’ transformation. Digitization is at the heart of its broad commitment to modernize every aspect of the Kingdom, and personal finance is fundamental to that plan. Citizens who are more able to access financial services and loans become more powerful consumers, and in turn support the shift to a consumer-driven and entrepreneurial economy.

Ijarah Finance identified this and has developed a new, fully automated personal lending platform. Named ‘Mora’, it is the amongst first wholly digital lending solution in KSA and offers customers the chance to apply for and secure personal loans in less than five minutes. That speed is partly enabled by the Kingdom’s move to democratize its data, meaning financial companies such as Ijarah can tap into national databases that record an individual’s income and credit history. But access to data is meaningless without the technology to fetch and process it. For this, Ijarah selected the Temenos Banking Platform to build Mora on top‌ of.

The result is the Kingdom’s first fully digital loan application and approval service. So far, 5,000 Saudi citizens have secured loans via Mora, while registrations are forecast to more than double by the end of 2023, reaching 25,000.

Though a digital solution, Mora is also appearing on shop floors, as in-store product financing agents advise customers to download the app rather than join the hours-long queues to submit their paperwork in the traditional way.

Retail customers can now just head to the till with their Mora app, show their loan approval, and walk out with their product. It’s a better customer experience for them, and really efficient for the retailers too.”

Jamshed Afzal, Chief Technology Architect at Ijarah Finance

A platform for now and the future

Mora is the first solution that Ijarah Finance has built on the Temenos Banking Platform. Indeed, the partnership, which began in 2021, was prompted by the shortcomings of the company’s previous technology stack. Unlike Temenos’ unified and composable platform, Ijarah Finance had relied on a complex integration of multiple vendors. That stilted innovation, and so Ijarah’s ability to launch new products efficiently.

“The best part of the Temenos platform is that it is one single, fully integrated, core banking solution. Everything is all in one box.” Jamshed Afzal Chief Technology Architect, Ijarah

Mora has been built using Temenos’ core banking and digital services, with Temenos XAI about to be deployed too. These solutions have not only aided the development of Mora, but also give Ijarah access to other capabilities and services that they can switch on anytime in the future. For example, Ijarah has also invested in Temenos Payments Hub, with a view to developing payment processing services in the future; and is also exploring Temenos Financial Crime and Mitigation (FCM) and native analytics tools.

The Temenos platform is so enriched. You never have to look for additional software to fulfill a requirement. Rather, the solution itself provides the answer.”

Jamshed Afzal, Chief Technology Architect at Ijarah Finance

Imagination is the only limit for Ijarah. The API architecture of the Temenos Banking Platform has consigned intricate and costly integrations to the past, while the customizability and extendibility of modules allow Ijarah to build highly personalized customer experiences and flex to evolving regulations.

“Every country, even every bank in a country, has its own needs. A rigid platform creates overheads and compromises, whereas the Temenos platform can be easily configured. So you become fearless. You always know that you’re going to be able to adapt to local and organizational needs” Jamshed Afzal Chief Technology Architect, Ijarah

The result is a newfound agility and scalability that will become increasingly important as Ijarah looks to build out Mora with new features and create new products and services that they can bring to market at breakneck speed. These benefits will become amplified when Ijarah migrates Mora to the cloud version later this year. That had not been possible earlier because of the Kingdom’s strict data sovereignty laws and the absence of a public cloud hyperscaler. But with the Temenos platform agnostic to deployment environments, this did not delay progress. Mora was launched on-premises, and Ijarah was then able to make the decision to move to Oracle cloud as soon as an infrastructure option became available.

Trust in the tried and tested

When you’re building a product designed to transform a nation, you don’t want to leave anything to chance. This was one of the principles that brought Ijarah to the doors of Temenos.

Scale without order can be complex. Whereas other global technology companies are little more than a loose amalgamation of disconnected services, Temenos is a single entity—a unified platform of integrated and complementary solutions, all accessed via a single API connection. Put simply, this makes things work easily. Mundane and repetitive tasks are automated, reducing development and operational workloads. Data can be leveraged between applications, with these insights used to deliver superior customer experiences. All the while, costs and lead times come down, cutting the time to market for new products, and ensuring new revenues are realized faster.

The success is in the numbers

Ijarah has seen an immediate return on its partnership with Temenos. Average loan approvals are already running at a higher conversion rate per day, and are expected to ramp up by 4 -5 folds per day by autumn 2023. Speed has been a key driver. Previously, it took new customers days to register and apply for a loan, leaving many frustrated (some of whom will have abandoned their application). Today, new customers of Mora can go from initial onboarding to loan confirmation in less than five minutes, all from the convenience of their mobile device (Ijarah will be launching a web version of the Mora app later in the year). And more are doing just that—Ijarah has seen a 25% increase in its customer base since launching Mora.

More customers at less cost is another key takeaway. Operational spending is expected to be reduced by 40% in year one, a combination of automating processes, consolidating systems, and outsourcing maintenance. In turn, Ijarah has more budget and time to deploy to new ventures, and importantly, more inclination too. It now takes them around one month to develop and push new features and products to market, just a third of the time it took before.

“Previously, we had to write code for everything. That code had to be tested. With Temenos, integrations are low code, so everything is accelerated. This has given us a big advantage” Jamshed Afzal Chief Technology Architect, Ijarah

This improved proximity from the design to the revenue stage emboldens the appetite for innovation and enables action. Ijarah reports that workflows and efficiencies have improved by 80% since partnering with Temenos. A credit card and e-wallet are the next products that Ijarah is now developing and will deploy on the Temenos Banking Platform by the end of 2023.

All these markers of success combine to improve profitability, with a 40% increase in the return on equity.

The Temenos platform is resilient, robust, scalable and adaptable to change. These are all ‘must-have’ features you need in a world-class banking technology. It will continue to facilitate our market growth.”

Jamshed Afzal, Chief Technology Architect at Ijarah Finance

Region

Middle East & Africa

Solutions

Core Banking
Digital Front Office

Sector

Other Financial Institution
Retail Banking

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