Build customized digital financial products and maximize shareholders’ value through agile and flexible operations
Taipei, Taiwan
One of the listed banks in Taiwan, Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank (SCSB), has selected Temenos and IBM to replace its legacy core systems with Temenos open platform for composable banking. IBM Consulting will lead the SCSB modernization project with implementation partner Nagarro/TechMill. Earlier this year, the companies expanded their collaboration, leveraging IBM Consulting and Technology combined with Temenos open platform for composable banking to accelerate clients’ digital transformation while de-risking their journeys to the hybrid cloud. SCSB has a worldwide network and handles large volume of remittances from Taiwan to worldwide. With its subsidiaries in Hong Kong and Cambodia, SCSB manages total consolidated assets about US$75 billion and net worth about US$7 billion.
The first bank to use blockchain accountant confirmations, SCSB is one of the pioneers in digital banking. Replacing its core system with Temenos will enhance the bank’s overall competitiveness and allow it to scale more efficiently by running multiple entities and lines of business on a single banking platform. SCSB will adopt Temenos core banking, payments, and data lake functionality to support Retail, Corporate, Trade and Treasury banking, including offshore and domestic deposit and remittance businesses. The bank will also adopt Temenos country model banks for China and Hong Kong to make implementation simpler and more cost-efficient.
We are constantly looking to innovate and improve to stay ahead of the times and our customers’ needs. With disruptive technologies, the pace of change is faster than ever, and a legacy core was holding us back. Partnering with Temenos and IBM, we can transition to a modern technology platform that will enable us to quickly build customized digital financial products and maximize shareholders’ value through agile and flexible operations. The new platform will drive scalable efficiency and ensure SCSB is poised to seize new opportunities in a rapidly changing world.”
Alex Lin, President at Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank
Nagarro is a global digital engineering leader with a full-service offering, helping Temenos clients become innovative, digital-first companies and enabling them to run intelligent and agile operations powered by data and automation.
IBM helps financial services organizations drive smarter, profitable growth, balance costs with agility, and improve their risk management and industry differentiation.
Build customized digital financial products and maximize shareholders’ value through agile and flexible operations
Taipei, Taiwan
Bank of Queensland (BOQ) has gone live with retail banking services on Temenos Banking Cloud for customers served by BOQ and Virgin Money. Since going live, BOQ has completed over four million transactions on the new platform. The modernization project with Temenos simplifies BOQ’s technology landscape by consolidating several legacy systems into a single platform for retail and business banking. BOQ Group will migrate all of its banking operations across three banking brands—leading regional bank BOQ and challenger banks Virgin Money and ME Bank.
Temenos provides the world’s leading open platform for composable banking, allowing banks and financial institutions to easily assemble, test, and extend broad banking capabilities. Using Temenos’ cloud-based platform enables BOQ to offer superior customer propositions with personalized offerings at a fraction of the cost of its legacy systems, building a competitive advantage and a low cost-income ratio.
We are modernizing our technology from back to front to give us the flexibility and agility of a neobank, while leveraging the scalability and long-term investment of an established institution with 148 years in banking. This will provide our customers with compelling experiences, fast transactions and cutting-edge features. By leveraging the Temenos platform and the benefits of the cloud, we are attracting new customers and driving growth, ultimately improving our competitive advantage.”
Rod Finch, Chief Product & Transformation Officer at Bank of Queensland
Build customized digital financial products and maximize shareholders’ value through agile and flexible operations
Taipei, Taiwan
At a Glance
Achieved a 70% reduction in workloads for the bank’s internal development teams
Able to schedule one upgrade at least per year per subsidiary with a 50% shorter execution time.
Create development environments within a day instead of 5 days
Consolidated 4 separate core banking instances to a single technical stack
Completed initial upgrade of Temenos Core in 6 months following a phased, low-risk strategy
Reduced cost operation by 1M USD compared to previous setup
There has been at least 90% improvement in overall automation testing
Founded in 1838, Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB) is the oldest and largest banking institution in Mauritius. MCB provides a range of personal, corporate and institutional banking services through a local network of 40 branches. The bank also maintains a strong regional presence, operating through subsidiaries and associated companies in Madagascar, Maldives, Mozambique, Seychelles, Dubai, South Africa, Kenya and France.
Although MCB has a long history, it has always focused on looking forward. The bank has built a reputation for innovation, being the first financial institution to introduce ATMs to Mauritius in the 1980s. It was the first to launch a mobile banking app: MCB Juice, which has since, upgraded several times to allow users to check their accounts, transfer funds, manage cards, pay bills and view investments among others all while on the move. A new beta version of the mobile banking application is under test that will reveal further enhancement and new functionalities.
Reza Chady, Architecture Chapter Lead at MCB, confirms: “Innovation plays a very important role in our culture, and we pride ourselves on being able to adapt to a demanding operating environment. Today, customer preferences and regulatory requirements are evolving rapidly. To stay ahead of the change, we need banking systems that are flexible and adaptable, while also providing a secure environment for delivering our services.”
Getting fit for the future
As part of this continuous push to innovate, MCB set out on a journey to update and transform its core banking infrastructure. The bank has been using Temenos Core since 2007 and, after years of expansion, it felt that the time was right to change the bank’s setup. Key objectives for MCB were rationalizing what had become a complex systems landscape, and achieving greater economies of scale and speed across multiple subsidiaries and banking functions.
“Our core banking landscape has not grown in a very uniform way,” explains Reza Chady. “Previously, we maintained 5 different versions of Temenos Core, with individual environments for each operating entity. This approach was overly complex, and made it difficult to scale the business and execute new strategies in a unified way—not to mention adding considerable cost and management overheads.”
Core banking, upgraded
To rationalize and streamline its core banking environment, MCB decided to consolidate all of its separate entities on one centralized Temenos Core technical stack, running in its private cloud. This cloud-powered platform has shaped the heart of a new digital backbone at MCB, transforming current business and operational processes to gain greater efficiency, agility and innovation.
For its new private cloud environment, MCB opted for a container-based architecture. The bank’s development team already had a positive experience using the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform for creating containerized applications for its digital channels. So naturally, the team was keen to build on the platform again when it came to the core banking renovation.
Assembling an expert team
The core banking upgrade and private cloud migration represent one of the bank’s most ambitious recent projects. To minimize risk and ensure a smooth execution, MCB engaged Temenos services experts for their support and guidance.
Managing a project of this scale and complexity requires precise coordination among all partners and a high level of trust. We were very pleased with the strong working relationship we built with Temenos. The collaboration between our teams has been extremely productive, and that’s evident in the quality of the deliverables.”
Reza Chady, Architecture Chapter Lead at MCB
Adopting a low-risk, step-by-step upgrade strategy
Together, MCB and Temenos identified that a phased approach was the smartest way forward for the upgrade project—reducing complexity and risk. As the first stage in the implementation, MCB migrated the core banking environment of one of its entities in the Maldives onto the latest version of Temenos Core.
Reza Chady continues: “The initial upgrade took around six months to complete and went very smoothly. Since then, the latest version of Temenos Core has been working perfectly, as is the Red Hat OpenShift environment. The combination of Temenos and Red Hat has proved really powerful, and we are very pleased with the stability and performance we have achieved since the upgrade.”
Following Maldives successful and smooth upgrade, we proceeded with MCB Mauritius core banking upgrade from R23 to R24. Following another positive outcome and smooth implementation, this upgrade has been extended to our remaining regional subsidiaries—Seychelles has been upgraded to R24, while Madagascar continues on R23, ensuring alignment with regional deployment strategies.
Currently, the Mauritius COB time has been reduced to around 2 hours 20 minutes from an initial average COB time of around 7 hours.
Strategic Adoption and Modernized Management with OpenShift
MCB strategically selected the OpenShift Container Platform as its container orchestration solution for its robust enterprise features, which have greatly enhanced operational agility and efficiency.
Leveraging OpenShift, each Application Server instance is deployed as an independent Pod, simplifying management and ensuring isolation. Horizontal Pod Autoscalers (HPA) dynamically scale workloads based on performance metrics, while Prometheus provides real-time monitoring and alerting for proactive system oversight. In addition, OpenShift’s rollout-based restart mechanism enables application instances to restart without service interruption, ensuring zero-downtime deployments and improved service availability.
Ongoing initiatives
In parallel, the bank is rolling out the Temenos Extensibility framework, which will allow it to connect its core banking platform to different third-party services.
MCB is already getting compelling results from its core banking upgrade. With Temenos Core running in its private cloud environment, MCB has opened up a whole new world of agility and scalability, which has already accelerated time-to-market for new client services with a streamlined development pipeline. MCB will now be able to schedule one upgrade at least per year per subsidiary with a 50% shorter execution time.
Today, we’re deploying new services faster, with fewer issues during release management and more controlled access to production. Before, it took around five days and the efforts of multiple teams to create new development environments; now, we create them within a day. We estimate that this has resulted in a 70% reduction in workloads—and we expect to build on these efficiencies as we automate more workflows.”
Reza Chady, Architecture Chapter Lead at MCB
The bank is also unlocking major cost savings by consolidating on a single core banking instance and database, as Reza Chady explains: “By migrating to Temenos Core in our private cloud, we expect to reduce our hardware estate by at least 70%. Likewise, by consolidating from individual instances to a single core banking platform and database, we expect to realize significant savings on licensing costs, as well as administrative and maintenance resources.”
Reaching new horizons
The benefits and value of the core renovation will only increase as MCB works to bring more of its entities onto the latest version of Temenos Core. Building on the well-established partnership with Temenos, the bank is looking forward to a brighter future.
We have been working with Temenos for 15 years now. In that time, it has been amazing to see how far their technology has come. Temenos Core has evolved into a truly modern, sophisticated platform with a robust architecture and rich capabilities. We are very excited to have Temenos as the backbone supporting our ongoing digital transformation.”
MCB Consulting Services Ltd (MCB Consulting) has been fully incorporated in June 2014 as a wholly owned subsidiary of MCB Group Ltd, the largest financial services provider in Mauritius and increasingly in the region.
Providing a clear modernization path to adopting a cloud strategy for core banking, digital banking, wealth management, fund management, and payments systems.
Build customized digital financial products and maximize shareholders’ value through agile and flexible operations
Taipei, Taiwan
Established in 1966, Bank of Kigali Plc has grown to become Rwanda’s largest retail and commercial bank. To enable the rapid product and service innovation that will attract new accounts from the younger generation and the unbanked population, Bank of Kigali, has gone live with Temenos core banking system. The solutions streamline and automate the bank’s processes and offer next-generation core banking capabilities, including advanced analytics, reporting, risk and compliance. Replacing its core banking system with Temenos open platform for composable banking allows the bank to break free from legacy constraints and accelerate its digital transformation.
We are delighted to be live on Temenos, the modern technology platform of choice for banks worldwide. Temenos is crucial to our vision of giving anyone, anywhere, the best customer experience through digital and retaining our position as the leader in the country. We also benefit from a wealth of insight and information on banks worldwide as part of the Temenos Value Benchmark that helps us understand, accelerate, and optimize the business value created by our technology investment.”
Dr. Diane Karusisi, CEO at Bank of Kigali Plc
Bank of Kigali plc, focuses on multiplying its retail and SME customer base to more than one million in the next year by utilizing increased automation and new digital services such as payroll loans and enhanced mobile offerings. With integrated core banking and data management capabilities, the Bank of Kigali can quickly expand its digital channels and engagement to deliver faster, smarter customer experiences. Additionally, integrated operations will allow the bank to build a 360-degree view of its customers, helping it create new offerings fully aligned with demand.
I commend our staff and the support of Temenos, Inlaks and MCBC for their hard work in ensuring this go-live went as planned despite all the constraints brought by COVID-19 in the past two years. We can now propel our product innovation and lead the way in digital financial services while benefiting from increased automation to achieve operational efficiency.”
Established in 1982 as a division of Inlaks Plc, Inlaks has grown consistently to reach the leadership position it has attained today. Inlaks is private limited liability company and a member of the international and well re-known Inlaks Group of Companies.
MCB Consulting Services Ltd (MCB Consulting) has been fully incorporated in June 2014 as a wholly owned subsidiary of MCB Group Ltd, the largest financial services provider in Mauritius and increasingly in the region.
Build customized digital financial products and maximize shareholders’ value through agile and flexible operations
Taipei, Taiwan
At a Glance
• 80%year-on-year increase in new registrations for digital services
• 35% of loans originate on the digital channel within just 10 months after go-live
• 40%drop in call-center volumes, freeing teams up to support members more comprehensively
• 85% reduction in manual back-end processing, reducing the risk of human error
• 83% Net Promoter Score, reflecting member satisfaction and loyalty.
Established in 1964, St Raphael’s Garda Credit Union was formed to serve the needs of An Garda Síochána, Ireland’s national police force. From a membership of 119 people in its first year, the organization has grown to become the country’s largest credit union, now made up of more than 39,000 Gardaí and their families. A not-for-profit co-operation, the organization has a member-centric approach to its business.
Claire Byrne, Chief Executive Officer at St Raphael’s Garda Credit Union, says: “We serve almost every part of the police force, with members living all across Ireland. What sets us apart from other financial institutions are the deep relationships we cultivate with our members which have been built on more than fifty years of mutual trust and respect. Our primary objective is to look after the financial well-being of all our members, and we work hard to truly understand each member’s needs, and to offer them best-in-class lending and savings products and services to help them achieve their financial goals.”
Meeting new expectations
In recent years, consumer expectations around financial services have shifted dramatically. Today, customers increasingly expect the ability to engage with their provider on any channel—branch, contact center, or digital device—and to switch between these channels seamlessly throughout their journey.
“As a not-for-profit co-operative, we can provide lending and savings products at extremely competitive rates, since we’re not dependent on external money markets” explains Claire Byrne. “While great prices, service levels and products are crucial, easy access and speed of decision has become increasingly important and therefore constant investment in how we deliver our services has also become equally important. In Ireland and around the world, the financial services sector is evolving rapidly. As digital banking becomes the norm and new entrants such as fintechs enter the marketplace, it’s vital for St Raphael’s to offer high-quality online and mobile experiences to compete effectively and ensure we remain central in the provision of financial services for our members.”
Targeting digital transformation
To realize its goals, St Raphael’s set out on a far-reaching digital transformation. The aim was to provide members with streamlined digital services: empowering online and mobile users to complete important journeys such as loan origination end to end. St Raphaels will always offer members a choice in the channels they choose to use, whether that is to visit a branch, call a customer service agent, or to utilize our digital channels.
We never take our members’ loyalty for granted. To help us to attract new members and protect hard-won relationships, we decided to reimagine our digital channel from the ground up.”
Claire Byrne, Chief Executive Officer at St Raphael’s Garda Credit Union
Selecting a proven partner
For many years, St Raphael’s has been a leading innovator in Ireland’s financial services industry. When Ireland’s regulatory framework for credit unions was updated, the organization was the first to offer mortgage products to its members. The company was also an early adopter of digital services, working with Temenos to support its first online banking experience using an earlier version of Temenos core banking more than a decade ago. Based on its positive experiences with Temenos Financial Inclusion solution, the credit union decided to build its new digital experiences on the latest generation of the Temenos core banking solution along with Temenos digital banking platform.
“To realize our vision for the omni-channel customer experience, we targeted even tighter integration between our front, middle and back office – and that’s exactly what Temenos allows us to do,” comments Claire Byrne. “As a small business, we greatly appreciate the wealth of technical expertise and customer experience best practices that our partnership with Temenos brings to St Raphael’s. Crucially, with Temenos front-to-back platform, we can deliver consistent journeys across every channel and digital device.”
Realizing the vision
Working with its Temenos business partner Banktech, St Raphael’s mapped out the target workflows and configured Temenos core and digital banking platform to enable the new omni-channel experiences. The solution includes an entirely digital process for loan origination—the first of its kind for any credit union in Ireland.
“Our transformation was complex, and the process was further complicated by the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, which struck right in the middle of the project,” recalls Claire Byrne. “Despite the challenges we faced, the excellent collaboration between our team, Banktech and Temenos helped us to keep our work on track. Although social distancing and lockdown measures forced us to switch from a co-located project team to colleagues working remotely from the UK, India, and the USA, we were determined to succeed—and our switchover to the new solution went very smoothly.”
Ensuring 24/7 services
Today, St Raphael’s uses Temenos Financial Inclusion to support its core banking workflows from end-to-end, while Temenos digital banking platform allows the organization to deliver outstanding digital experiences to its members, online and on mobile.
“The transition to the latest version of Temenos core banking was practically seamless for St Raphael’s employees,” comments Claire Byrne. “The Temenos solution is extremely intuitive, which allowed our people to get started with minimal training. Most importantly, the solution is also extremely resilient and reliable. Our members are front-line staff, working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We need a service that is resilient and reliable, and Temenos core banking enables us to keep our services running smoothly 24 hours a day.” Thanks to intelligent automation powered by our Temenos solutions, members can now apply for lending products from their smartphone and receive an approval within minutes—any time, day or night. After just 10 months, a massive 35% of all our loans now originate on the digital channel, which is a testament to the value our members see in the service.”
Accelerating adoption, generating operational efficiencies, and reducing risk
St Raphael’s members have been quick to embrace the new online and mobile experiences. The organization has measured an 80% year-on-year increase in new registrations for its digital services, and an increasing number now seek out these channels for day-to-day transactions.
Members now have the freedom to carry out their business at the times that are most convenient for them. As a result, we’ve seen a 40% drop in call volumes to our contact centre. Our teams now have more time to help people with more complex needs. And members have responded really well to these improvements, rating St Raphael’s with an incredible Net Promoter Score of 83% in a recent survey.”
Claire Byrne, Chief Executive Officer at St Raphael’s Garda Credit Union
Automation at St Raphael’s isn’t limited to customer-facing services. Behind the scenes, Temenos core banking allows back-office teams to work more efficiently than ever. Claire Byrne confirms: “One of the impacts of the new solution that we didn’t fully anticipate at the beginning of the project was just how much time it would save in the back office—, particularly around regulatory controls. Automation has allowed us to reduce manual processing by around 85%, which cuts the risk of human error and liberates our teams to focus on value-added work.”
Looking to the future
Looking ahead, St Raphael’s plans to build on its success with Temenos and drive continuous enhancements to the customer experience. The next step is the move to the cloud, in collaboration with Temenos.
The impact of our transformation has been phenomenal: we can now deliver even higher-quality services to our customers without driving up cost and complexity for the business. In our sector, continuous innovation is crucial to compete effectively. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Temenos, and we look forward to working with them to find new ways to improve our services.”
Claire Byrne, Chief Executive Officer at St Raphael’s Garda Credit Union
Temenos Ambassador Awards 2022
Delighted to recognize St. Raphael’s Garda Credit Union as one of the winners of the Innovation Hero Awards for deploying an innovative and impactful project, using a Temenos solution.
We partnered successfully with
Banktech offers end-to-end implementation services covering all Temenos Products Suites. Banktech offers agile implementation services thus fast tracking digital transformation for Banks
Build customized digital financial products and maximize shareholders’ value through agile and flexible operations
Taipei, Taiwan
Hong Kong’s first homegrown virtual bank, WeLab Bank, has publicly launched using cloud-native Temenos core banking platform to provide a range of next-generation digital services for customers to enjoy 24/7 from their mobile phones. WeLab Bank was designed, built, and launched using cloud-native Temenos core banking platform in less than 10 months. The fully digital bank has seen rapid take up with a reported 10,000 account openings within the first 10 days of launch. With the preconfigured system of Temenos core banking platform, WeLab Bank was able to bring its service to market faster and extend its innovation with more than 400 out-of-the-box APIs.
Implemented on Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, WeLab Bank is the first multi-cloud digital bank in Hong Kong. Operating on multiple clouds at the same time provides increased operational resilience and disaster recovery capability, which helped WeLab to meet reliance and resolution planning requirements of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority for all banks.
WeLab Bank was born from an initiative to reimagine the banking experience for the 7.5 million people of Hong Kong. From the start, we knew this vision needed the most advanced cloud native technology and a partner that shared our vision for digital transformation. With Temenos we have efficiently built WeLab Bank from scratch, free from any legacies, with innovative features that proactively help customers to take control of their money and their financial journey.”
Adrian Tse, Chief Executive Officer at WeLab Bank
Developing a cost-effective and scalable core banking solution was paramount for WeLab Bank. With Temenos, WeLab bank is set to transform banking in Hong Kong. In as fast as 5 minutes, customers can remotely open a WeLab Bank account with $0 monthly fees and start enjoying differentiated services such as time deposits with competitive rates, an interest-bearing deposit account with an instant virtual Debit Card, and real-time payments powered by Faster Payment System (FPS). This makes it easy for WeLab Bank to scale for future business growth efficiently and eliminates the need to provision for peak processing volumes so that the bank only pays for its actual usage, yielding significant cost savings.
Build customized digital financial products and maximize shareholders’ value through agile and flexible operations
Taipei, Taiwan
The white label card and banking-as-a-service provider, Optimus Cards, chose Temenos open platform for composable banking to support the expansion of its cards-as-a-service business. Temenos will help the UK Electronic-Money Institution launch new products faster and scale efficiently as it expands into new markets. As part of Uphold, the global multi-asset digital trading platform with over 10 million users, Optimus has expansive growth plans. It is launching new white-label credit card and multi-asset crypto-enabled debit card services and partnering with local regulated issuers in Europe and the U.S. to expand its footprint and tap new growth opportunities.
Our strategy is based on innovation, speed and flexibility, providing solutions to mutual institutions like credit unions and building societies, and to innovative fintechs bringing Web 3 services to the market. The economics of our offering enables customers of all sizes to offer card services profitably, and that requires a high-performance technology stack. Optimus chose Temenos for the platform’s proven reliability and resilience, and the flexibility to compose solutions for a broader range of Banking-as-a-Service offerings in the future. With a client base that includes over 950 core banking clients and more than 600 digital clients, along with 500 credit unions in the U.S., Temenos has a significant customer ecosystem and experience that will be invaluable as we push into new markets.”
Build customized digital financial products and maximize shareholders’ value through agile and flexible operations
Taipei, Taiwan
At A Glance
One of Vietnam’s most established commercial banks with 6 million retailcustomers and 100,000 corporate clients
Modernized with Temenos Core, Temenos Payments Hub, and Temenos Data Hub
10% customer and account growth, 180% transaction volume increase within six months of go-live
2–5x acceleration in time to market for new products
Founded in 1991 in Hai Phong City, Vietnam Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MSB) has grown to become one of the country’s most prestigious financial institutions. With a charter capital of VND26 trillion and nearly 6,700 employees, MSB serves more than 6 million retail customers and 100,000 businesses through a national network of 260 branches and transaction offices.
MSB is known for its forward-thinking approach and deep commitment to customer-centric innovation. As the first joint stock commercial bank in Vietnam, it has always embraced a pioneering spirit—one that is now focused on shaping the future of digital banking in Vietnam.
Our mission is to deliver a more convenient and beneficial life for customers, and by extension the country. That starts with a solid, modern core.”
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Linh, CEO of MSB
Time for change
Like many traditional banks in Vietnam, MSB found itself at a crossroads. The rapid rise of digital-native competitors and changing customer expectations—accelerated by the post-COVID shift toward 24/7 digital banking—made transformation essential.
Customers, especially younger generations, no longer saw banks as physical branches. They expected services to be available instantly, digitally, and seamlessly—from simple payments to more complex lending, trade finance, and forex services. At the same time, the Vietnamese government and central bank began pushing for a cashless society, further accelerating the pace of change.
MSB’s legacy core system had served the bank well. However, it became no longer fit for purpose for a bank accelerating its digital transformation journey.
To move forward, MSB needed a strong, stable, and flexible foundation to support the bank’s long-term digital ambitions.
Wanting a state-of-the-art solution
MSB’s selection criteria was expansive. The new system had to be rich in features, such as straight-through processing and product innovation tools. It needed to be highly customizable, easily integrate with other software, and cloud compatible. It had to be scalable, so that increasing levels of performance and availability could be achieved cost-effectively. And the bank wanted a vendor with a long term vision and commitment to the country’s banking industry and wider market.
After a thorough evaluation process, MSB selected Temenos to power its modernization. Three key solutions were deployed: Temenos Core (providing a modern, scalable banking platform); Temenos Payments Hub (TPH) (enabling efficient, integrated payment processing); and Temenos Data Hub (supporting advanced analytics and data-driven decision making).
Temenos stood out across a number of factors: a rich product suite; a modular and API-enabled architecture; the availability of on-premises, SaaS or managed cloud deployment options; its track record coupled with its long-term vision; and the strength of its implementation team. This all combined to deliver a more optimal total cost of ownership.
We chose Temenos because it gives us a suitable solution with rich functionality, scalability, flexibility, and a strong partner for now and the future.”
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Linh, CEO at MSB
An outstanding impact
With Temenos providing the powerhouse for change, MSB has kicked off new digital programs, among which a new mobile and internet banking platform for retail and corporate clients. The benefits of MSB’s modernization have been significant.
Within just six months of going live customer and account volumes increased by 10% and transaction volumes surged by 180%. Additionally, the bank has seen maintenance costs fall significantly, and a 2-5 times acceleration in time to market for new products.
It is now launching complex new products to market in a matter of weeks instead of months. These include rate sharing sponsored lending for employee apartment buyers; certificate of deposit buy and sell; and forward rate agreements (CCS/IRS).
With Temenos, we can bring new products to market faster—weeks, sometimes even days, instead of months. That’s a huge competitive advantage.”
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Linh, CEO at MSB
Trusted beyond the tech
Mr. Nguyen explains that the experience and expertise of the Temenos team was crucial in achieving this fast start. He points to three key areas of the implementation. First, striking the right balance between a fast deployment while ensuring no compromise on the customer experience. Secondly, setting smart priorities while creating enough flexibility in the plan to be agile. Finally, the value of piloting new capabilities as early and as often as possible.
The experience, he adds, demonstrates how Temenos is far more than a technology vendor. “They are equally committed as we are to making our investment work. They define success not simply about the now, but about delivering our long-term vision.”
Looking ahead, MSB plans to continue building on this foundation. The bank is exploring upgrades to the latest Temenos releases and evaluating the Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation suite to strengthen compliance and risk management.
Mr. Nguyen and his team are now looking to the future with more confidence than ever.
With Temenos, MSB has laid the groundwork for the next chapter in our transformation journey—one defined by innovation, inclusion, and impact.”
Build customized digital financial products and maximize shareholders’ value through agile and flexible operations
Taipei, Taiwan
At a Glance
• 2.16 million DNI accounts opened in the first six weeks, with peaks of more than 89,000 daily enrollments.
• Approximatively 5 minutes for customers to activate digital accounts, 90% faster than using the previous core platform.
• Sub-millisecond response times ensure a fast, seamless customer experience
Banco de la Nación del Peru plays a pivotal role in the Peruvian financial system, operating both as a central and a retail bank. On the one hand, the bank manages state accounts, foreign trade and debt, collects taxes and makes payments on behalf of the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Banco de la Nación also runs programs that support financial development and improve quality of life for Peruvian citizens.
“We aim to boost financial inclusion in Peru, bringing banking services closer to citizens, especially in remote areas traditionally underserved by banks. To reach these people, we focus on innovation, such as digital banking services that enhance accessibility and enable fast and secure services.”
Jaime Bravo Xavier, Alternative Channels Manager at Banco de la Nación del Peru
Delivering vital financial assistance
The COVID-19 pandemic made Banco de la Nación’s work more important than ever. To protect vulnerable citizens and businesses, the Government launched a series of relief schemes, including the Yanapay bonus, a state grant for low-income households and those living in poverty.
To disperse Yanapay funds to citizens in need, the Ministry of Economy and Finance asked multiple financial institutions, including Banco de la Nación, to implement a payment strategy. In response, the bank made available, among other services, the DNI Account, named after the official term for citizen identification numbers in Peru. Opening a DNI Account would enable users to receive payments from Yanapay, as well as accessing other financial services, virtually, without exposing them to the risk of contagion.
Janny Nicasio, Business Solutions Leader of DNI Account Project at Banco de la Nación del Peru, continues: “In the long term, we wanted the DNI Account to offer citizens a range of innovative and integrated banking capabilities, such as interbank money transfers, withdrawals in correspondent agents and payment of services. And ultimately, our dream is for all Peruvian citizens to enjoy access to a DNI Account.”
Building an agile core banking environment
Pedro Martin Hidalgo, Technical Leader of DNI Account Project at Banco de la Nación del Peru explains: “Rather than use our mainframe-based systems, we decided to deploy a new core environment to support the DNI Account. Along with rapid product development and exceptional performance, we wanted a solution that would provide an intuitive customer experience and help to encourage adoption among Peruvian citizens to digital banking.”
Deploying a proven, world-class platform
To identify the right solution, Banco de la Nación conducted an analysis of several market-leading vendors. Ultimately, the bank chose to work with Temenos and his business partner Techmill Technologies* to deploy Temenos core banking, Temenos Analytics, and Temenos Payments running on the Temenos banking cloud.
“Independent analysis from the likes of Gartner informed us that Temenos was the world-leader for core banking, with an excellent reputation for innovation. We also considered the scalability of their solutions, which would allow us a solid growth. Plus, we wanted to take advantage of the technology and infrastructure in the cloud, which will allow us to increase productivity and reduce risks“
Janny Nicasio, Business Solutions Leader at Banco de la Nación del Peru
Pedro Martin Hidalgo adds: “Techmill Technologies* coordinated the implementation to meet our timelines, and their communications and dedication have been positive. Their support has been integral to our success.”
The Temenos solutions sit at the heart of Banco de la Nación’s digital banking ecosystem, integrating with systems from ten other vendors, including customer acquisition, communications, and digital wallet tools. Once live, the bank’s multidisciplinary teams used the Temenos solutions to test and optimize the DNI Account.
Janny Nicasio comments: “During the development phase, the Temenos banking cloud really showed its value. We could run multiple environments at the same time, which simplified stress testing (carried out in 2021) and simulations; and allowed us to measure aspects such as transaction times before fine-tuning our approach. Adopting the cloud model made a challenging and potentially complex process much easier.”
Reaching millions of citizens in need
Since the launch of the DNI Account in October 2021, Banco de la Nación has achieved extraordinary growth, with over 2.16 million accounts activated in the first six weeks and peaks of more than 89,000 daily activations.
Pedro Martin Hidalgo adds: “Reaching more than two million DNI Accounts in such a short time period represents a huge success for Banco de la Nación. Working with Temenos, we have created a digital banking service that enables vulnerable and low-income Peruvian citizens to receive vital Yanapay support payments, which will help them through these challenging times.”
An intuitive experience that encourages adoption
Despite rocketing demand and transaction volumes, the performance, scalability, and robustness of the Temenos solutions ensure a seamless experience for DNI Account holders. After adapting together the different platforms, the Temenos solutions provide sub-millisecond response times for Banco de la Nación customers when checking their accounts, with minimal errors and deviations even during peak transaction times. As a result, users are highly satisfied with the service.
“Thanks to the Temenos solutions, customers can open a DNI Account in approximately five minutes. And they enjoy immediate access whenever they check their balance online. We have created a seamless, intuitive experience that will continue to attract more users, including citizens previously unfamiliar with digital banking.”
Luis Arrus, Digital Banking Manager at Banco de la Nación del Peru
Bringing financial services to every corner of Peru
Banco de la Nación del Peru plans to add a number of features during 2022 and 2023, including transfers, payments, virtual POS and digital wallet options. In 2022, Banco de la Nación expects to reach more than 10 million DNI Accounts, for Peruvian citizens over 18 years old. It is estimated that, by December 2023, the DNI Account will make it possible for all Peruvians over 18 years old to have a 100% digital bank account. With this account, they can carry out operations through various physical and virtual channels such as receiving payments, saving, making transactions, and even having a financial history.
Janny Nicasio concludes: “Working with Temenos and Techmill Technologies* has been satisfying It has helped us take another step towards our goal of making the DNI Account available to all Peruvian citizens.”
*Techmill joins forces with Nagarro
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Nagarro is a global digital engineering leader with a full-service offering, helping Temenos clients become innovative, digital-first companies and enabling them to run intelligent and agile operations powered by data and automation.
Build customized digital financial products and maximize shareholders’ value through agile and flexible operations
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At a Glance
● 9 months to develop and launch a new mobile banking app, later reduced to just 4 months for subsequent apps.
● Over 550,000 customers now actively use the bank’s apps
● Contributes to 30% annual growth in mobile app usage
● 95% of total transactions run on digital channels
● 57% of digital banking is on mobile only, resulting in 33% increase of transactions
One of the ten largest banks in Italy, Credito Emiliano SpA (Credem) has been helping customers to manage their finances for more than 110 years. Headquartered in Reggio Emilia and listed on the Borsa Italiana stock exchange, the bank offers wealth management services alongside retail, business, and corporate banking. With 1.5 million customers, Credem reported total assets under management of EUR 65 billion.
Digital services are a strategic priority for Italian banks, especially since the pandemic has limited access to physical branches. As the battle for market share intensifies, they strive to differentiate themselves from the competition with online and mobile services that place simple, secure, and intuitive financial tools at users’ fingertips.
Fabio Caliceti, Head of Digital Channels, Credem, explains: “We are evolving our business model, pushing very strongly towards a full omnichannel service, with an optimal mix between human and digital to meet the highest and most demanding client needs. To build long-lasting relationships with customers, with regard to digital channels, we aim to make every digital touchpoint and digital contact as frictionless and easy to navigate as possible.”
Fostering a culture of established digital innovation
In 2019, Credem committed to innovation by working on various initiatives. These included setting up a stronger connection with the fintechs and introducing new leading-edge technologies such as automation, artificial intelligence, and chatbots to enhance the bank’s services.
This emphasis on innovation has sparked strong growth across Credem’s digital channels, but the bank saw opportunities to improve its mobile banking app. With its previous development platform, Credem found adding new features and performing maintenance a time-consuming and labor-intensive process.
Andrea Ferrari, Head of Touchpoints, IT Department, Credem, adds, “There was a risk of our mobile app becoming outdated and falling behind the competition. Our platform vendor offered no real technology roadmap, with limited investment in new functionality. We had significant growth in app usage, but we need to make ongoing improvements to maintain that momentum.”
Innovation takes many forms, and a relatively new focus for Credem is on extending ESG-related services beyond traditional enterprise customers to retail.
Andrea Ferrari clarifies, “We are launching a new project to understand what we could do as a bank on the ESG side, in line also with new European regulations, to help our customers better understand their environmental impact. And being able to share our ESG focus and goals with Temenos who is committed on sustainable business practices for a while, is certainly an advantage for us.”
Selecting a low-code development platform
Credem planned a new mobile app for retail banking, private banking, and small and medium-sized business customers called “Digital Banking” with a fresh design and a rich array of tools to empower users to manage their accounts. It was subsequently decided to build dedicated apps for each audience. To build the two new apps, Credem assembled a team of developers, business analysts, and Product Owners, and decided to use Temenos digital banking on Temenos SaaS with infrastructure running of AWS.
Temenos offered a very useful low-code platform that would allow our teams to develop the new mobile apps in JavaScript and bring new front-end features to market rapidly. Cloud and CI/CD are two pillars of our IT strategy, so we also wanted a partner with proven service delivery capabilities, letting us the opportunity to stay focused on new functionalities. The Temenos team demonstrated considerable experience using CI/CD methodologies to test, develop, and deploy new banking apps.”
– Andrea Ferrari, Head of Touchpoints, IT Department at Credem
He adds, “The Temenos SaaS ensures that we avoid the hassle and costs of managing infrastructure, which has formed a key part of our IT strategy for many years. The cloud model also gives us elastic scalability, allowing us to provision resources at the click of a button during testing and development.”
Developing and launching quickly—despite the pandemic
Credem started the implementation just as the pandemic struck, with lockdowns sweeping across Italy. To keep work moving forward, the project team moved to a remote deployment and development strategy, based on an agile framework. Working together, Credem and Temenos completed the discovery phases, created and tested the alpha version of the new app, and launched the full version on the market in just nine months.
Completing such a complex project fully remotely wasn’t easy at all, but Temenos helped to minimize disruption, bringing wide-ranging skills and competencies to the table, this, added to a strong commitment from Credem people has achieved the goal of completing the development and launching the new app in nine months; a really excellent result.”
– Andrea Ferrari, Head of Touchpoints, IT Department at Credem
During the development process, Credem made full use of Temenos Country Model Bank functionality, which provides prebuilt workflows, such as payments and money transfers, that, after some evolutions defined during the project, are now fully compliant with local Italian financial regulations, helping to reduce project complexity and accelerate time-to-market.
The omnichannel low-code Temenos platform was pivotal to success, as Andrea Ferrari confirms, “With the Temenos solution, we were able to use the same code for both the iOS and Android versions of the app. We could work as a single, unified team throughout, focusing all our strengths on a single technology and not splitting on different mobile operating systems. Our users found the Temenos platform easier than other technologies, we have invested time in skilling our people, and in a short time we have been proficient with the tools.”
Leveraging on the know-how to deploy new apps
Following the successful launch in January 2021, Credem gradually rolled out the new apps to approximately 450,000 individual and SME customers.
In early 2023, Credem built on the success of these apps with the release of two new mobile apps for the needs of private banking customers from Credem Euromobiliare Private Banking, which is part of the Credito Emiliano group, one for individuals and another for businesses.
And they were built much faster this time round. As Andrea Ferrari explains, “These two new apps were built in four months each as we leveraged the paradigm of the previous apps and the experience of the team involved. It was quick and easy to adapt the current apps to create the new ones.”
Furthermore, it is easier to deploy new features and enhancements. In 2023 alone, Credem launched 11 version updates. It’s a record, as Andrea Ferrari highlights, “We are delighted with the Temenos digital platform, which allowed us to deploy 11 releases in nine months. It is exceptional and it’s indeed more than five times the number of releases per year we had prior to working with Temenos”. The number of releases further increased in 2024 to an impressive 12 version updates for the main retail application and another 16 for the Private Banking and SME applications.
Delivering a superior in-app experience
The apps features a simplified, frictionless design and interface that makes it easy for users to navigate the various menus and features, while multi-factor authentication, including biometrics options, ensures the highest levels of security. Credem has also embedded the mobile token used for authentication and transactions in a smoother fashion.
Within the apps, Credem customers can activate and manage cards, view transaction records, make and schedule transfers, top up prepaid payment cards, and as well as manage bill and tax payments.
Recently, Credem just launched its first 100% digital-only savings account and has signed 15,000 brand-new customers already. They can now apply for new debit and credit cards via their app, rather than having to go into a branch.
Andrea Ferrari explains why this new offer is a gamechanger, “It’s enriching our customer proposition. We are offering something remote for people who don’t want to come into a branch and who prefer to stay at home.”
Andrea Ferrari adds, “With Temenos, we can make enhancements to our mobile app that were more complex with our older platform, ensuring that we continue to improve the user experience. The solutions enable us to develop and bring new services to market rapidly; we have already introduced smart credit card management and payments options, and added account aggregation.” And users are responding positively to these enhancements. The new apps now average four stars in Apple’s and Google’s app stores, up from three stars.
Moving forward, Credem also intends to harness third-party integration tools leveraging the partner ecosystem Temenos Exchange, to further enhance its mobile banking services, as Andrea Ferrari explains, “With Temenos Exchange, we can connect seamlessly to leading-edge fintech solutions, avoiding the complexity of in-house development. Temenos gives us all the tools that we need to cement our status as a leading innovator among Italian banks.”
Attracting more and more app users
Working with Temenos to develop these apps has helped Credem to attract new users for its mobile banking services. In recent years, the bank has achieved consistent 30 percent annual growth in app usage and downloads, with over 100 million transactions across all its digital channels.
Today, Credem’s apps are used by over 550,000 active customers, while 95% of total transactions now run on digital channels (Mobile, Online Banking, etc.), keeping the mobile application at the core of digital evolution process. Indeed 57% of customers accessing the bank’s digital services are doing so, solely through one of Credem’s apps.
In the first 12 months the bank has seen a 41% increase in app downloads, a 39% increase in logins, and a 17% rise in app active users. This rate of adoption has resulted in a 33% increase in the number of transactions and payments performed via mobile. Fabio Caliceti adds, “Temenos has been an important pillar in the ongoing growth of our mobile app. Along with the dedication of our development teams and our strong focus on innovation, the Temenos solutions have helped us to accelerate our digital transformation and evolution towards omnichannel service delivery.”
Credem has redesigned its online banking channels using Temenos, building streamlined journeys for every stage of the customer lifecycle, from onboarding and origination onward. The new web-based digital banking experience and instant payments are the new projects that are in implementation. Credem values the partnership with Temenos and the ability to have workshops between both teams to align roadmaps.
Temenos is a great partner to Credem, always sharing useful information and looking to assist us in new ways. With Temenos, we are building innovative digital banking services that will help to strengthen our ties with our customers and differentiate ourselves in a competitive market. We are confident that we are looking at a brighter future, and Temenos will be a key part of this.”
– Andrea Ferrari, Head of Touchpoints, IT Department at Credem
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