STC Bank is a pioneering digital bank in Saudi Arabia. It was born from the transformation of STC Pay, a wallet service launched by Saudi Telecom Company (STC). Today, it stands as one of the region’s most prominent fintech success stories, with a growing portfolio of digital financial services. Backed by STC Group and fully licensed by the Saudi Central Bank, STC Bank operates on a mission to deliver simple, accessible, and secure banking to both individuals and businesses across the Kingdom.

Scaling to meet success

STC Bank’s journey began with a simple wallet offering. Success brought scale, and scale brought complexity. As customer expectations rose, STC Pay needed to evolve into a full-fledged digital bank without losing the ease of use and rapid service that had made it successful. The team faced a critical question: how to maintain seamless, user-centric services while meeting growing regulatory demands and building the infrastructure for future growth?

“The main challenge was continuing to offer simple, user-friendly services—without compromising on compliance,” said Mansour Al-Zharani, Chief Technology Officer, STC Bank.

Their existing in-house system needed to support a high-volume digital banking operation. A new core platform was essential—one that could support composable services, automation, and regulatory compliance at scale.

A deployment first

Following a rigorous evaluation process, STC Bank selected Temenos Core as its new core banking system, implemented with support from Temenos Services and regional partner Seedz (formerly BankerWay). The solution included modules for accounts, lending, deposits, and Temenos Advanced Collection.

It became one of the first companies in the world to deploy Temenos Core on PostgreSQL, an advanced open-source database.

The decision to go with PostgreSQL, combined with a microservice-driven architecture, reinforced the bank’s commitment to agility and composability. This modern tech stack has allowed STC Bank to introduce new digital services rapidly, and support anticipated increases in transaction volumes, while minimizing customizations and maximizing out-of-the-box capabilities.

Engine of growth

STC Bank went live with Temenos Core on 14 February 2022. The platform has proven its ability to scale. And now handles 5 million daily transactions with ease.

Driving these numbers are operational improvements. New products can now be brought to market faster, supported by automated deployment and CI/CD pipelines. The bank’s use of out-of-the-box capabilities and minimal customization has supported agility and reduced complexity. The launch of microservice-based lending services has laid the groundwork for a modular, data-driven banking model. Above all, the bank has achieved high service reliability, with very few issues arising after go-live.

Mansour explains that the balance of out-of-the-box capabilities with customizations has been crucial to this. “Builds and releases are now fully automated throughout all the environments, while the ease with which we can add customizations keeps us agile.”

Deep partnership

STC Bank chose Temenos for its vision, track record, and composable architecture. The decision was rooted in a long-term view: avoiding legacy limitations and investing in a platform that evolves with innovation.

Temenos stood out for its experience in the Saudi market, strong regional partnerships, and the ability to support open technologies such as PostgreSQL.

Equally important was the partnership ethos. Temenos’ engagement was deep and broad, with product owners, technical specialists, and support all involved. STC Bank also benefits from Temenos First Level Support, including an onsite engineer for immediate issue resolution, helping preserve development speed and service continuity.

Looking ahead

STC Bank continues to expand its product set using Temenos Core, with new lending and deposit offerings in development. It is also exploring how AI capabilities from Temenos can further improve operational efficiency, development workflows, and delivery timelines.

With a modern, scalable core in place, STC Bank is well positioned to lead the future of digital banking in Saudi Arabia—setting the standard for what a composable, cloud-native bank can achieve.

STC Bank Pioneering Composable Digital Banking in Saudi Arabia Riyadh, Saudi Arabia At a Glance ● Live with Temenos Core since February 2022. ● One of the first banks to run Temenos Core on PostgreSQL. ● Scaled from 3 million to 5 million transactions per day.   STC Bank is a pioneering digital bank in Saudi Arabia. It was born from the transformation of STC Pay, a wallet service launched by Saudi Telecom Company (STC). Today, it stands as one of the region’s most prominent fintech success stories, with a growing portfolio of digital financial services. Backed by STC Group and fully licensed by the Saudi Central Bank, STC Bank operates on a mission to deliver simple, accessible, and secure banking to both individuals and businesses across the Kingdom. https://vimeo.com/1094014151/8b8361059c PLACEHOLDER https://vimeo.com/1096146640/fdf448de0d?ts=0&share=copy STC Bank 2025 Reference Case study – Video Pioneering Composable Digital Banking in Saudi Arabia Riyadh, Saudi Arabia STC Bank web ready logo Scaling to meet success STC Bank’s journey began with a simple wallet offering. Success brought scale, and scale brought complexity. As customer expectations rose, STC Pay needed to evolve into a full-fledged digital bank without losing the ease of use and rapid service that had made it successful. The team faced a critical question: how to maintain seamless, user-centric services while meeting growing regulatory demands and building the infrastructure for future growth? “The main challenge was continuing to offer simple, user-friendly services—without compromising on compliance,” said Mansour Al-Zharani, Chief Technology Officer, STC Bank. Their existing in-house system needed to support a high-volume digital banking operation. A new core platform was essential—one that could support composable services, automation, and regulatory compliance at scale. A deployment first Following a rigorous evaluation process, STC Bank selected Temenos Core as its new core banking system, implemented with support from Temenos Services and regional partner Seedz (formerly BankerWay). The solution included modules for accounts, lending, deposits, and Temenos Advanced Collection. It became one of the first companies in the world to deploy Temenos Core on PostgreSQL, an advanced open-source database. We were impressed by Temenos’ long-term roadmap and clear strategy for composable banking. They showed us a path from monolithic systems to modular services. – Mansour Al-Zharani, Chief Technology Officer at STC Bank The decision to go with PostgreSQL, combined with a microservice-driven architecture, reinforced the bank’s commitment to agility and composability. This modern tech stack has allowed STC Bank to introduce new digital services rapidly, and support anticipated increases in transaction volumes, while minimizing customizations and maximizing out-of-the-box capabilities. Engine of growth STC Bank went live with Temenos Core on 14 February 2022. The platform has proven its ability to scale. And now handles 5 million daily transactions with ease. Driving these numbers are operational improvements. New products can now be brought to market faster, supported by automated deployment and CI/CD pipelines. The bank’s use of out-of-the-box capabilities and minimal customization has supported agility and reduced complexity. The launch of microservice-based lending services has laid the groundwork for a modular, data-driven banking model. Above all, the bank has achieved high service reliability, with very few issues arising after go-live. Every product we’ve launched since go-live has moved from development to testing to production smoothly and on time. – Mansour Al-Zharani, Chief Technology Officer at STC Bank Mansour explains that the balance of out-of-the-box capabilities with customizations has been crucial to this. “Builds and releases are now fully automated throughout all the environments, while the ease with which we can add customizations keeps us agile.” Deep partnership STC Bank chose Temenos for its vision, track record, and composable architecture. The decision was rooted in a long-term view: avoiding legacy limitations and investing in a platform that evolves with innovation. Temenos stood out for its experience in the Saudi market, strong regional partnerships, and the ability to support open technologies such as PostgreSQL. Equally important was the partnership ethos. Temenos’ engagement was deep and broad, with product owners, technical specialists, and support all involved. STC Bank also benefits from Temenos First Level Support, including an onsite engineer for immediate issue resolution, helping preserve development speed and service continuity. Looking ahead STC Bank continues to expand its product set using Temenos Core, with new lending and deposit offerings in development. It is also exploring how AI capabilities from Temenos can further improve operational efficiency, development workflows, and delivery timelines. We’re on a journey to reach more customers by offering more services—and Temenos is helping us get there. This partnership isn’t just for a year or two. It’s about long-term growth. – Mansour Al-Zharani, Chief Technology Officer at STC Bank With a modern, scalable core in place, STC Bank is well positioned to lead the future of digital banking in Saudi Arabia—setting the standard for what a composable, cloud-native bank can achieve.

President’s Choice Financial® (PC Financial®), part of Loblaw Companies Limited – Canada’s leading food and pharmacy retailer, aims to make everyday banking more rewarding for its customers. With the introduction of a savings feature to its PC Money™, Account holders already save on banking fees and earn points linked to PC Optimum™, a popular loyalty reward program with more than 16 million active members. PC Financial recently deployed Temenos core banking on SaaS in just 6 months to achieve fast time to market for its first interest-bearing offering.

Founded in 1934, MidWestOne Bank is headquartered in Iowa City and operates over 50 branches in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Colorado. MidWestOne provides a range of services in the retail, small business, and commercial sectors. These include banking, credit, mortgages, and wealth management. It has 140,000 customers and $6.6bn in assets, making it the third-largest bank in Iowa.

Its aim is to be the preeminent relationship-driven community bank, where its expertise and proactive approach generate meaningful impact for its customers and stakeholders.

Details matter

For the spokesperson at the bank, trust is the vehicle for that growth. “We don’t want to be a transactional institution. We really want to help and guide people. How we get potential customers to understand that is a challenge for us.”

The spokesperson explains it’s about a carefully balanced approach. “We really want to differentiate ourselves in the fact that we’re small enough to really care, but big enough to deliver all of your needs.”

In practical terms, it’s about “reaching our customers where they want us to, when they want us to,” the spokesperson says. Technology can deliver convenience, but what’s key is to do that better than the competition.

This approach was evident when the bank recently launched its digital account opening platform. “We really looked at every detail—the experiences of our customers and our back office employees—to make everybody’s lives easier.”

One aspect of the new platform is to create profiles of valuable customers upfront and enable auto-decisioning for suitable applicants. “We’ve got the process down to just four minutes from application to funding,” says the spokesperson. The technology is also applied to ‘unqualified’ applicants, so they don’t waste time online but can instead go into the branch.

100% digital

MidWestOne’s new account opening solution has been built with Temenos’ Digital Onboarding product. The spokesperson recalls: “When we started thinking about the customer experience, it became clear that our incumbent vendor was not the right partner for us.” Despite the ‘digital’ name tag, their solution required all applications to be individually reviewed, which meant lots of manual data inputting and checking. Decisions were then messaged to customers manually by a bank employee.

In contrast, Temenos’ proposal demonstrated the automation capabilities that MidWestOne was looking for: the flexibility to deploy an out-of-the-box solution with the controls to customize it; API connectivity with the bank’s existing core system; ease of use; and a team of people it trusted to deliver.

Usability was particularly important, explains the spokesperson, because MidWestOne did not have an in-house development team to call on.

No problem too small

The bank’s choice of Temenos has also been vindicated by the commitment of its support team. “I have direct lines of communication with their key people, who have encouraged me to reach out with questions. Or I can create a service ticket, and usually get a response back from them within an hour or two, even on low-priority tickets. They are very responsive.”

Fast improvement

The bank went live with Temenos Digital Onboarding as SaaS (running on AWS) in November 2023, with the support of RCG Global Services for the implementation. The returns have come quickly. Online account openings have almost tripled compared to pre-Temenos rates (without any marketing spend), and online account opening rates have surpassed their peer median groups. Two-thirds of these are performed on a mobile device, and over 90% of applications have been decided automatically. The spokesperson estimates that automating Qualifile denials alone has saved the bank over 60 manhours since launch.

Speed is another benefit. On average, it takes applicants under two minutes to complete an application and receive a decision. Previously, applications would take closer to 20 minutes, with decisions coming one to two business days later. For approved customers, funding is now completed in just four and a half minutes, whereas in the past customers would have had to wait two to three days to complete the micro deposit verification process.

MidWestOne has also taken advantage of the platform’s vendor ecosystem by connecting to a third-party ID verification solution and integrating it into its onboarding experience.

Increased customer satisfaction has followed, both for those who open accounts online and in-store.

Open up the throttle

The bank is understandably keen to keep up this momentum. It has just started a project – with its implementation partner RCG – to incorporate banker referrals into the platform, which will help drive more customers online. And it plans to expand the range of products it offers, including high yield savings accounts and private wealth products.

The spokesperson says they plan to add more products from different business lines as they mature with the platform.

Ualá is an Argentine fintech, with a mission to improve financial inclusion across Latin America. Through a mobile application linked to an international Mastercard card, users can carry out a wide variety of financial transactions in an easy, secure, and transparent way. This includes money transfers, payments, credit and investment options, and access to a loyalty program. It also offers a range of solutions for businesses, such as payment terminals, payment links, and payment integration with online stores.

Ualá has more than seven million users in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. In 2021 it was valued at $2.45 billion, following the largest investment round ever secured by an Argentine company. It followed this up in 2023 by securing a full banking licence. Consequently, it wants to move away from a partnership model (where it licensed third-party products) to develop and launch its own banking services.

Plan for growth

For Ezequiel Mina, Chief Technology Officer at Ualá’s Mexican business, this progress mirrors the marketing strategy they are now employing. “A large portion of the Mexican population still can’t access a bank account or credit products. Our aim is to introduce these people to modern finance through a debit card or investment product first. They will then be able to build a credit history, and so unlock credit options.”

Innovation at the heart

While innovation is key to this vision, it does not represent a challenge in the way it would for traditional banks.

Ualá’s track record speaks for itself. It was one of the first financial companies in Latin America to offer fully automated onboarding and a digital debit card, and to understand the benefits of building native mobile applications. “It’s all about simplicity,” says Ezequiel. “How can we make things as easy as possible for people? There are always improvements to be made. That’s why we are always innovating.”

Time to move

In May 2023, Ualá signalled its ambition to grow by acquiring ABC Capital, at the time one of Mexico’s prominent retail banks. The opportunity also presented a challenge, recalls Ezequiel. “ABC had been running a 10-year version of Temenos Core (R13), which wasn’t going to handle the transaction volume that we expect to see in the next five years.”

Hence Ualá is now in the process of upgrading to the R24 version of Temenos core banking, and also extending the platform to its established business in Mexico. It is also moving from on-premises to a cloud deployment, with AWS providing the infrastructure. Go-live is expected in 2025. Key to that decision was the agnostic architecture of the Temenos platform.

Unleashing the new

As well as improving transactional volumes, the upgraded platform provides a range of features that are not available from the legacy version. Automation is also a key stepchange that Ezequiel is looking forward to embracing.

A shared future

For all the excitement around the potential of the platform upgrade, Ezequiel equals Temenos’ people just as much. “At Ualá, we say we don’t have vendors, just strategic partners. And with the core platform at the heart of our bank, Temenos is and will be one of our most important partners for the foreseeable future. They are already proving this in their support of the upgrade project.”

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.

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. “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.

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*.

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.”

Eurobank Group is a Greek banking group, based in Athens, Greece, with an international presence in Cyprus, Luxembourg, UK, and Bulgaria. It has 540 branches, around 10,500 employees, and total assets of $79.8bn. It is the 3rd largest bank in Greece and also in Cyprus, measured by assets, deposits, and loans. Its main strategic pillars are wealth asset management, international business banking, corporate investment banking, and bespoke banking for high-net worth individuals. These pillars vary from country to country.

Dual challenges, one solution

Chief among the bank’s challenges are regulation and digital innovation. On the former, an ever-changing, more demanding regulatory climate needs to be monitored and complied with. On the latter, the aim is to improve the customer experience by creating more self-service products and features, at a time when fintechs and neobanks are redefining customer-centric banking.

For Spyros Loizou, Group Head of International IT at Eurobank Cyprus, these are complimentary challenges. “Customers don’t just want convenience. They also need to feel that their funds, their investments, and their money, are safe and secure. So digital modernization is not just about how we create more convenient banking experiences, but also how we maintain responsible standards.”

Underpinning these dual challenges is technology, which the bank sees as both an enabler of innovation and a means to deliver its ESG commitments, explains Spyros. “Whatever we design and implement in the future has to be ESG compliant; but also, within the ESG spirit, meaning you design a process that has to be simple, and not burden the environment. That could mean going paperless with processes or minimizing the footprint of our IT operations. So we really approach ESG from a technology perspective.”

Time to change

Faced with these ambitions, Eurobank in Cyprus decided to evaluate its IT landscape. A closed architecture meant the bank relied heavily on the vendor to manage configurations and integrations, hampering innovation. This was compounded by the news that the vendor had stopped future investments in the product. “We were running legacy applications and systems that didn’t match the aspirations of the business. It wasn’t scalable, agile, flexible, or futureproof.”

That prompted the bank to search for a new core banking solution. From the outset, scale was an important selection criteria.

End-to-end advantage

Regulatory know-how was considered a key benefit of this scale. So too the breadth of the Temenos platform. “It has allowed us to continually enable new banking capabilities, without the complexities and costs from working with too many vendors.”

Eurobank Cyprus has made the most of this end-to-end platform, implementing core, digital, wealth management, Temenos Payments Hub (TPH), Financial Crime and Mitigation (FCM), trade finance, and analytics. The impact has been impressive, says Spyros. “Take TPH, for example. It has allowed us to simplify a previously complex operation of handling payments from different client types, whilst maintaining the flexibility to satisfy all the different nuances of each business line.”

Spyros also calls out the wealth management solution, from which the bank has launched a new digital offering.

This new digital wealth management service illustrates the speed with which Eurobank Cyprus can develop and launch new products. It has applied this capability across its portfolio, including investments, deposits, and lending products. “We can really go as fast as we want in a matter of days, we can launch a new product to the market, and be able to share with all our customer bases. That’s more than twice as fast as before.”

Big bang

Eurobank Cyprus has been live with the Temenos platform in its Cyprus business since April 2023; and for a “big bang implementation,” Spyros says it has been a smooth transition. “All the modules were new for all employees, but we’ve found them easy to learn and use. That empowers our people to create new products and proactively find new ways to do things more efficiently.”

The scope of the implementation – covering 85% of the bank’s IT in its Cyprus operation – felt like “waking up the next day with a brand new bank,” says Spyros. It was made more complex by starting three months prior to Covid and the workplace restrictions that ensued, which continued for 80% of the project.

Partnered by Temenos Implementation Services, the project involved not only migrating data from the old systems but also adapting the back-end procedures and operations so that they were aligned. This was a crucial aspect, recalls Spyros.

The big lesson he takes away from the implementation is the need for discipline, which points to having the right partner. “You need a lot of good governance. With a large-scale migration such as we did, it can be easy for the scope to creep even broader. It’s very important to stick to the plan, and only then allow yourself the appetite to add incrementally.”

First year returns

Just over a year after go-live, Eurobank Cyprus has already seen significant returns on its investment in Temenos. In payments it has been able to introduce STP (straight through processing), and now nine out of ten payments are fully automated, including compliance checks. Today it processes approximately 120,000 monthly payments in and out, across its product range, with the majority in their corporate, commercial, and international sectors. There has been good news too on false positives, which has come down to 6-8% as a result of the FCM module.

Spyros adds that it is also now much easier for the bank to implement new payment methods (e.g. SEPA and SWIFT) and configure these differently for its separate business lines and customer profiles, such as adjusting pricing rules and fee structures. “In combination with FCM, we can pretty much do whatever we want in order to balance operational efficiency, while ensuring compliance.”

Wealth management is another area where the bank has seen efficiencies. Prior to Temenos, every aspect – from order capture through to execution and settlement – was manual or semi-manual. STP has also been applied here, “which allows us to focus more on what really matters for the customer, such as providing good advice and investing in the manager relationship.”

Digital banking is a third area of improvement that Spyros calls out.

Eurobank Cyprus has also taken advantage of the trade finance module from Temenos. “It marries really well with our corporate business because a lot of our clients that are trading across the globe need to guarantee their shipments with letters of credit.” Again, automation has been a big benefit and applied to tasks such as calculating commissions, and managing messages across the SWIFT network. “It is another example of how we have taken fully manual processes and achieved significant efficiencies with automation.”

An ambitious future

Going forward, the bank’s priority is to grow its retail business. “With the Temenos platform, we have the capabilities we need to achieve this.” As well as scalability, composability of services, and automation, it includes availability. Since going live, the bank has seen 99.96% availability from the platform, which is even more impressive when you consider the ‘big bang’ approach it took. This robustness is complemented by a support team from Temenos that “are knowledgeable, proactive, and solve issues fast”, says Spyros.

And compliance automations make the bank better placed to manage the rollout of a new raft of upcoming international regulations and standards, such as the introduction of the Swift MX ISO format in 2025.

With the successful implementation in its Cyprus business serving as a blueprint, Eurobank Cyprus has since enabled Temenos Wealth in Greece, and is now implementing it in Luxembourg.

Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB) is a conglomerate of banks servicing South-Eastern Europe, with operations in Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro. It offers universal banking services to the retail and corporate sectors, as well as running an investment banking arm. In six of its markets, NLB accounts for at least 10% of the market share, measured by balance sheet total. That figure currently stands at just over 16bn Euros, with reported profits of 514m Euros. It has 2.7 million customers, including 700,000 retail clients in Slovenia and a further 50,000 SME and large business clients. It manages 68 branches across the region.

Its objective is to be the leading bank in South-Eastern Europe by the end of 2030. To that end it is developing a digital-first operating model, supported by a scalable IT suite.

Two sides to scaling

For Franci Drnovšek, NLB’s IT Delivery Deputy General Manager, this goal consists of a dual strategy; on the one hand to innovate, while maintaining the highest security standards. “With open banking and the arrival of fintechs, customer expectations have never been higher. Today, everyone expects pre-approved investments, transactions to take seconds, and loan applications to take just minutes. So we must adapt to this new reality, by leveraging AI and cloud to innovate faster, but also be very strict about security.”

Always adapting

This journey was made easier thanks to the agility of Temenos core banking, that was first deployed in 2002 for its corporate customers. NLB keeps upgrading to the latest version.

The platform has proved to be very adaptable from the start. Recent examples of this were the incorporation of the new PDS2 regulations that came into force in 2019, and integrating N Banka (previously Sberbank), a newly acquired bank, in 2023. For the latter, go-live was executed over a weekend, following a year of planning and testing. “There was no interruption for our customers, the migration was successful and went smoothly. We were very proud of that.”

Following the success of N Banka retail customers migration to Temenos core, NLB who initially had deployed the core for its corporate clients only, will start migrating its retail customers too.

Customer-centricity in everything

Key to this is ‘Arrangement Architecture’ (AA), a powerful module within the core banking platform that allows banks to design and manage financial products in a more flexible and efficient way. “It means we can be much more customer-centric in everything from our product development to how customers engage with us.” He points to the multi-currency accounts feature and a 20% faster onboarding experience as examples of the step-change that the platform upgrade has delivered.

The bank is also seeing operational benefits.

Pushing on

The bank aims to migrate all its retail customers to the new platform version within 18 months, as well as leverage new capabilities such as Temenos Trade Finance to modernize and automate.

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.

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 LTM 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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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 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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”