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.

The first B Corp bank in Australia, Beyond Bank, is 100% owned by its customers. The bank is dedicated to the well-being of both its clients and the communities while offering its customers a better rate, fairer fees, responsible lending, superior customer service, and a multi-award-winning internet banking and mobile app.

As a B Corp. bank, Beyond Bank is certified as a business that meets high standards of social and environmental impact, ensuring its practices and outputs benefit all people, communities, and the planet. The bank is committed to supporting and helping the community thrive.

In a crowded marketplace, you need to think outside the box and offer something unique to succeed. That’s the challenge for Bank SinoPac operating in Taiwan, one of the most oversaturated banking markets in the Asia Pacific region. Part of Taiwanese finance group SinoPac Holdings, the bank serves individual and corporate clients and also operates in China, Hong Kong, Macao, Vietnam, and the United States.

Irene Huang, Chief Digital Officer, Bank SinoPac, explains: “We are competing against 38 commercial banks for a slice of a limited market. But there are opportunities, too. For example, there is high demand for digital and mobile banking services among younger people, especially those we call High Earners, Not Rich Yet or HENRYs, who form an important target demographic.”

One key component in Bank SinoPac’s strategy is a focus on digital innovation, as Irene Huang adds: “On the one hand, it’s about embedding new technologies, such as open APIs and artificial intelligence (AI). But it’s also about the right mindset, and always thinking of the customer experience when designing products. While many Taiwanese banks are conservative in their thinking, we adopt a more innovative approach.”

Taking the first steps on the transformation journey

This strategy dates back as far as 2009, when Bank SinoPac began to transform its core banking environment. To replace inflexible legacy systems, the bank selected Temenos core banking. They migrated previously data related to three million customers onto the platform. The move led to major efficiency gains: close of business (COB) processes ran 70 percent faster, and infrastructure costs were cut in half.

Entering the era of open banking

Since then, Bank SinoPac has worked with Temenos to upgrade the core platform in 2012 and 2020. The latest upgrade provided access to advanced API integration functionality, which enabled the bank to take advantage of the open finance initiative launched in Taiwan in 2020. The bank uses the open APIs to interface with the systems of 12 partner organizations and SinoPac Holdings subsidiaries.

For the internal teams at Bank SinoPac, Temenos solution has proved easy to use, as Irene Huang confirms: “Temenos core banking is a very intuitive platform. For example, the preconfigured components simplify work such as product development, eliminating the need for us to write lines of code.”

Developing a first-of-a-kind mobile banking app

Using Temenos core banking has enabled Bank SinoPac to push ahead with its innovation strategy. For example, the latest upgrade helped the bank achieve a threefold improvement in time to market for new services. The solution also helped the bank kick off the development of new digital banking services, such as the groundbreaking DAWHO app, which stands for Digital Account with Happiness and Opulence.

Irene Huang explains: “In Taiwan, banks typically offer mobile apps to manage only one service, such as savings or payments, causing a fragmented experience when users want to complete several different transactions. With DAWHO, we aimed for an ‘ecosystem’ approach that would offer customers a frictionless digital journey and enable them to access multiple services through one portal.”

In a first for the Taiwanese market, DAWHO integrates seven services: deposits, wealth management, foreign exchange, personal loans, mortgages, credit cards, and securities—all provided by Bank SinoPac or a SinoPac Holdings subsidiary. Temenos core banking processes all customer transactions made through the DAWHO app and enables the bank to create and deploy new product features.

Attracting an extra million customers

The DAWHO app has been a huge success, giving Bank SinoPac a valuable differentiator in the Taiwanese market. User feedback has been extremely positive, with satisfaction scores of 4.9 out of five on the Apple App Store. And in just over three years since the launch of DAWHO, the bank has seen 1.5 million customers open digital accounts—including 78 percent, or 1.17 million, net-new clients.

The app has helped Bank SinoPac to reach younger market segments, as Irene Huang notes: “Before the launch of DAWHO, the average age of our retail banking customers was 47. Today, it is 33—indicating that we have increased our appeal to generations Y and Z, including the HENRYs.”

This surge in customer numbers translates into a much bigger slice of the Taiwanese market. “We are now ranked number four in Taiwan in terms of digital banking account holders,” explains Irene Huang. “And overall, we have grown our market share from around five to ten percent since the rollout of DAWHO.”

Refining the digital experience

In the latest collaboration, Bank SinoPac is using Temenos digital banking to reshape and unify the user experience across all its digital delivery channels—including its e-banking web portal and mobile app, DACARD payments app, and integrated DAWHO app. The project is progressing well, and the bank expects to complete the enhancements and launch the new digital ecosystem early in 2024.

Irene Huang adds: “Our design team finds Temenos digital banking very useful for developing new layouts for our digital portals. They also highlight the value of Temenos Visualizer, which gives them the tools to create a consistent look and feel for all of our apps. Once live, we will be able to roll out updates to all four digital portals at once through Temenos digital banking, rather than having to run them separately.”

Established in 1996, Bank of Abyssinia is currently the largest privately held bank in Ethiopia, and plans to become the leading commercial bank in East Africa by 2030. To reach this milestone, the bank is on a mission to grow its customer base, boosting financial inclusion in the country and beyond.

Helping more Ethiopians access banking services

According to the National Bank of Ethiopia, 75 percent of Ethiopians don’t have a bank account and up to 40 percent of all bank branches in the country are located near to the capital. For many years, banks have struggled to expand their reach beyond urban centers as setting up and running branches in rural locations involves significant upfront capital expenditure and high operational costs.

However, market conditions are rapidly changing in Ethiopia, as more people gain regular and reliable access to the internet. Bank of Abyssinia identified an opportunity to help more people access financial services by building a 100 percent digital banking offering.

Addis Tadesse, Director for Application Management at Bank of Abyssinia, explains: “We’ve offered digital banking services for many years, but most of these services still required our customers to visit a branch at some stage – for instance, to bring identification to open new accounts. Also, some processes such as loan applications required in-person consultations. If we could make the experience completely digital, we would be able to reach underserved communities in remote areas and dramatically increase our market share.”

With no other bank in Ethiopia offering a fully digital service, Bank of Abyssinia decided to pioneer the new approach and searched for a technology partner to support its initiative. Crucially, the bank targeted a solution provider that would help it deliver a truly seamless digital experience and ensure that it could meet strict regulatory requirements for new digital banks set by the National Bank of Ethiopia.

Finding the perfect solution

Bank of Abyssinia decided to build 100 percent digital banking services with Temenos. At the same time, the bank chose to upgrade its Temenos core banking system to ensure that it could provide customers with the very latest innovations in both digital and in-branch banking.

Protecting against fraud

As the first bank in Ethiopia to launch entirely digital services, Bank of Abyssinia knew its new platform would be a potential target for fraudsters and cyber criminals. To safeguard against this risk, Bank of Abyssinia also decided to implement Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation—equipping the bank with the tools to spot and prevent illicit activity in near real-time.

Deepening partnerships

To achieve a rapid implementation, Bank of Abyssinia enlisted the support of Temenos business partner Xpert Digital to deploy Temenos digital banking, including the setup of an API integration with Idemia—the bank’s identity and security solution. Supported by Temenos and Xpert Digital, Temenos digital banking went live in just four months.

“Xpert Digital played a lead role in helping us design a digital banking ecosystem that is secure, reliable and, crucially, easy to use,” comments Addis Tadesse. “The Xpert Digital team went the extra mile by helping us to redesign key workflows for a completely digital environment incorporating best practices. For instance, they helped us to leverage integrations with Idemia to build efficient, highly secure and automated verification processes—allowing us to onboard customers rapidly and with confidence.”

Welcoming new digital customers

By building and launching end-to-end digital banking services with Temenos core and digital banking platforms, Bank of Abyssinia has significantly increased its customer base.

“Temenos gives us the tools we need to offer reliable, convenient and always-on digital banking services,” explains Addis Tadesse. “Today, through our Apollo service, customers can sign up for an account from their mobiles by submitting a video of themselves and a copy of their national identity card. With Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation and Idemia, we can run verification processes quickly and get new customers up and running with their new bank account within one day.”

Empowering more people to invest in their future

As well as offering digital account management services, Bank of Abyssinia enables customers to apply for loans via its mobile banking app—helping more people to access credit, as Addis Tadesse adds: “With Temenos digital banking, we can approve the loan and give our customer to their funds within a few seconds, as long as they meet our lending criteria, where previously this would take months.”

He concludes: “With Temenos, we’ve been able to bring a game-changing solution to the Ethiopian banking sector and empower our customers to bank with us confidently at any time and from any location. We look forward to strengthening our partnership with Temenos in the years ahead as we continue to develop our digital banking offerings and help more customers manage their money effectively.”

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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 on Temenos SaaS with infrastructure running of AWS.

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.

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.

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Cooperative Bank of Oromia (Coopbank) is an Ethiopian bank established by farmers 19 years ago. Their influence remains strong; more than half of the bank’s shareholders are still farmers, and it remains focused on the MSME farming and agricultural sector, which contributes more than 80% of the national economy, yet suffers from high levels of financial exclusion.

Coopbank is well on its way to fulfilling its goal to be the leading private bank in Ethiopia by 2025. It is already one of the country’s most profitable banks, with a total asset value of more than ETB 139.56 billion, operates 745 branches, employs more than 15,000 people, and has more than 13 million account holders, covering retail, corporate and institutional clients.

Nobody left behind

At the heart of this ambition is a mission to transform livelihoods and empower communities. “That is ultimately what we mean by innovation,” explains Aman Semir, the bank’s Vice President for Technologies and Digital Banking. “It’s really about solving people’s problems.” That mission goes hand-in-hand with a focus on ESG. “We’re early on in that journey, but we’re starting to see the fruits of our framework. For example, around 100 branches are now fully powered by solar and wind energy.”

Half of those branches are containers that have been modified. “We locate them in remote places where there is no electricity, and provide free Internet. For the people around there, they have become more than a bank branch. They are education and community gathering centers.”

Aman calls this the bank’s ‘phygital’ approach

It is this dual track – of both readying for future opportunities while ensuring nobody gets left behind – that marks the Coopbank out.

A great fit from the start

To deliver this strategy, Coopbank turned to Temenos, deploying the core banking platform in 2016. “Everyone had become frustrated by our legacy system. Staff were having to stay in the office until midnight to record the day’s work, such as new accounts opened. You just can’t grow with that sort of inefficiency.”

The bank found its way to Temenos through a combination of Gartner ranking and reviews, RFP response, customer references and personal experiences of employees. It has not looked back. “From the start, Temenos was a really great fit. The past six to seven years have proved that our choice was the right one.”

The evidence for that is everywhere. In that time the bank has grown 19x its customer base from 700,000 to 13.2 million, and is now growing its asset value by 40% year-on-year. Loan portfolio has been growing 50% year-on-year for the past six years, and deposits have increased 39% to 42% in the same timeframe

Aman paints a before and after comparison to illustrate his point. “Before Temenos, just to come up with a simple saving product would have taken us a long time. We were forced to go to our vendors and wait for them to configure their systems. But now we can do that in just a few hours, both in-house development and third-party integrations.

Powerful partnerships

For these projects the bank accessed the Temenos certified partner network to source its implementation partners – USI for the initial implementation, Inlaks for the upgrade, and Xpert Digital to enable Temenos digital.

“It’s always been a smooth and fast process – just four months for the initial deployment, and nine months for Temenos digital.” Aman recalls that, back in 2016, the bank chose not to involve Temenos in the implementation, but instead used the model bank configuration. “The scope and flexibility of that template meant when we upgraded, there was nothing to change. It was almost too good to believe!”

Deepening the partnership

As well as upgrading the core banking platform to the latest version in 2023, Coopbank also added Temenos Trade Finance, which it uses to offer interest-free banking to Islamic customers.

The bank has also enabled Temenos digital to its suite. “It’s brought customer onboarding to the next level. We’re now able to onboard tens of thousands of customers every day, and give them a world-class experience.” It means the bank can be confident in making ambitious projections. “In the next 12 months we aim to onboard more than five million customers.” Aman explains.

On the way to the top

Aman explains that Temenos has become so important to the bank that the partnership is seen as one of the critical halves of its operation, alongside leadership. As such, it plans to double-down on its investment. “Even though we upgraded the platform just a year ago, we’re already considering adding more modules, so we will probably not wait another three to four years to do another upgrade, but get on with that very, very soon.”

Aman is confident about what that will mean for the bank’s future.

We partnered successfully with Inlaks

Learn more about Inlaks

At a Glance

• Number one ranked app for mobile banking functionality available in Ecuador

• 185% increase in user interactions with the mobile app since deployment of Temenos digital banking

• 312% rise in financial transactions completed on the mobile app in the last two years

• Winner at the ‘Financial Innovators of the Americas Awards 2021’ run by Fintech Americas

Innovation and solid, dependable service have earned Banco Bolivariano a position as a top-five bank in Ecuador, with 821,000 customers and USD 4 billion in assets under management. Founded in 1980, the bank initially focused on the corporate and SME sectors, but also now targets the high-net-worth market with retail banking products, including current and savings accounts, credit cards, and money transfers.

Placing digital transformation at the center of its growth strategy, Banco Bolivariano has developed many ingenious offerings. For example, the bank is the only one in Ecuador to offer customers the option to check their online account in seconds using a ‘quick view’ feature. Banco Bolivariano also builds partnerships with leading cloud providers to explore the use of API gateways for potential future Open Banking initiatives.

Ronald Romero Morán, Head of Digital Channels at Banco Bolivariano, explains: “As most Ecuadorian retail banks offer digital services, we use innovation to stand apart with a unique user experience. From using chatbots to adding fresh features to our online banking platform, we aim to make every digital interaction as quick, simple, and frictionless as possible, leaving our customers more time to focus on the things that matter most to them.”

Planning a more intuitive mobile banking experience

Within its digital channels, Banco Bolivariano identified room for improvement in its mobile banking app, known as 24móvil. Previously, the bank used an application from a local external vendor to run, but they needed a provider with a roadmap of innovative and world-class banking solutions. As a result, the app was falling behind the mobile services offered by competitors, and Banco Bolivariano goal is to become the best digital bank in Ecuador.

Gustavo Molina Flores, Chief of IT at Banco Bolivariano, comments: “We were using legacy solutions that needed almost constant updates and large amounts of time-consuming patching. Maintaining compatibility with new releases of mobile operating systems was also very difficult, and we did not have the tools to build and roll out new features quickly to meet evolving customer preferences.”

Setting its sights on delivering the best mobile banking app in Ecuador, Banco Bolivariano planned a new approach. The bank looked for a best-of-breed platform that would deliver leading-edge innovation capabilities, and enable its developers to enhance the user experience, adding features such as seamless onboarding, greater security, and more flexible payments services.

Deploying best-of-breed development tools in the cloud

To optimize its 24móvil app, Banco Bolivariano sought a partner with a proven track record helping major financial institutions to build first-class mobile banking services. A clear solution roadmap was essential, along with sophisticated development tools to improve time-to-market for new features. After assessing available options, Banco Bolivariano chose to deploy Temenos digital banking solution running on the Temenos banking cloud.

Working with Temenos, Banco Bolivariano implemented the solution and recently completed an upgrade to the latest version, as Gustavo Molina Flores explains: “Although a complex process, integrating Temenos digital banking with our back-office and core banking environment was much easier than expected. Since then, the Temenos banking cloud has facilitated upgrades, keeping us up-to-date with new capabilities.”

Building a culture of innovation across the bank

Using Temenos digital banking, Banco Bolivariano developed and launched a range of more customer-centric mobile services. For example, the bank introduced faster and more user-friendly onboarding processes, cutting-edge biometric authentication options, and peer-to-peer payments. Where the bank’s previous mobile solutions stifled innovation, Temenos digital banking enables its developers to reduce time-to-market for new features.

The deployment of Temenos digital banking forms part of a much wider emphasis on innovation throughout Banco Bolivariano. Recently, the bank adopted agile project management practices to adapt quickly to changing market conditions and strengthen commercial performance. Banco Bolivariano feels confident that implementing the Temenos solution is supporting the progress of this wide-ranging cultural transformation.

Kyra Arcia Marcano adds: “Across the bank, we are taking steps to move faster and improve our service delivery. We have built a technology ecosystem that helps our development teams to design, test, and launch new products. With its extensive ready-made capabilities, Temenos plays a crucial role in enabling us to turn innovative plans into reality.”

Getting ahead of the competition

With the enhanced 24móvil app, Banco Bolivariano is differentiating itself from market rivals and winning more customers. Their last NPS score was 57 compared to an average of 49 from competitors. User feedback for the app has been highly positive, with an app rating of 4 out of 5 stars on Android and 3 out of 5 on iOS.

In the two years since the project launch, Banco Bolivariano has seen the average number of monthly users of the app rise by 127 percent, total user interactions with the app increase by 185 percent, and financial transactions completed through the app grow by 312 percent.

Continuing a prize-winning partnership

The project with Temenos has earned Banco Bolivariano widespread praise from across the American financial services sector. Most notably, the bank recently won silver at the ‘Financial Innovators of the Americas Awards 2021’ run by Fintech Americas in the ‘Customer Experience (CX) & Engagement Innovation’ category. Building on this success, the bank is continuing to explore other use cases for Temenos digital banking.

In Ireland and beyond, the events of 2020 have had a lasting impact on consumer interactions with financial service providers. Previously, Croí Laighean customers preferred to talk person-to-person in a branch; now, 80 percent of interactions are online. For Croí Laighean, the new challenge is how to create a digital presence that rivals the banking giants and emerging fintechs. To achieve this, the credit union will replace its legacy, on-premises systems with an agile model using Temenos community banking solution delivered as a Software-as-a-Service offering. Hosted by Microsoft Azure, the solution will enable Croí Laighean to automate processes and eliminate the cost and complexity of managing infrastructure. The rich functionality will enable the credit union to deliver outstanding digital experiences and personalized services, helping it to compete with larger operators.

We partnered successfully with Microsoft

Microsoft’s Financial Services group helps financial firms leverage technology to amplify the impact their people can deliver to drive business success.

Learn more about Microsoft

At a Glance

• 80% target of transactions conducted outside the branch office is already close to being achieved
• Regular customer feedback and suggestions are met with continuous updates and innovations
• Rapid adoption of its digital banking app, coupled with high levels of satisfaction

When Morocco’s CFG Bank obtained its commercial license in 2012, freeing it to evolve from an investment bank into a retail commercial bank, the transition didn’t just accelerate CFG Bank’s digital transformation; it spurred the bank to push the envelope. “In order to succeed, we had to be unique,” said Driss Benchafai, General Manager and one of the bank’s three co-CEOs. “We couldn’t do or offer the same thing, otherwise we weren’t going to have any clients.”

CFG Bank’s leaders knew that many Moroccan consumers wanted more of the digital banking experience and capabilities that have become prevalent around the world. In an attempt to satisfy these “demanding” clients, CFG Bank has adopted a technology-centric three-pillar strategy built on simplicity, transparency, and sustainable customer relationships. But CFG Bank couldn’t make this happen without a mobile technology platform that could help it excel on the digital front.

CFG Bank’s search led the bank to Kony, now part of Temenos, and CIO Zouhair Boulmane recalls that it was immediately clear that CFG Bank had found a platform with all the qualities it was looking for, beginning with an open architecture. The platform they chose is now part of Temenos digital banking. “We didn’t want to run the risk of choosing a platform that might restrict us, and we wanted to be able to develop something different every day,” he said.

Giving Customers What They Want

Less than a year later, CFG Bank launched a pilot app designed to offer its “demanding” customers an array of autonomous capabilities they desired. Customers can use the app to conduct typical banking transactions, activate or deactivate a credit card, or instantly modify credit card limits. More recently, CFG Bank added a personal financial management tool designed to help customers budget their spending more effectively. This all-in approach to its digital banking app has enabled CFG Bank to effectively retrain its customers to come into the branch only when making big financial decisions.

That objective has matched up well with Moroccans’ clear desire for autonomy. CFG Bank has seen brisk adoption of its digital banking app, coupled with high levels of satisfaction, a year after the app’s introduction. The bank has further stoked that adoption by ensuring that when a new client comes into a branch to open an account, he or she doesn’t leave without downloading the app. “We cannot imagine one of our clients not using our digital banking app today,” said Benchafai. “It would be like saying that a client doesn’t have a debit card.”

Work in Progress

The initial success of the app certainly hasn’t caused CFG Bank to rest on its laurels; in fact, quite the opposite. Utilizing the Temenos digital banking Retail Banking app has opened CFG Bank to a new level of flexibility and a whole world of ideas as the bank’s leaders often look to what other clients around the globe are doing to get the most out of the technology. CFG Bank also gets plenty of motivation from its customers, whose eagerness to do new things with the app pushes the bank to constantly innovate.

With its mobile channel firmly established, CFG Bank is looking to a future in which additional cutting-edge technologies add even more value to the customer experience. For example, Moulhim Aouad, Retail Executive Director, prepares for artificial intelligence to be paired with data analytics and consumer behavior analysis. “The goal is not to robotize the customer experience, but rather to be able to predict and assist in decision-making for both the client and bank,” said Aouad.

Just the Beginning

For now, CFG Bank is confident that it has put itself on the cutting edge of what mobile banking customers expect. Make no mistake, those expectations are higher than ever, and CFG Bank is fortunate to have leaders who understand just how important digital innovation is to the bank’s ongoing success, as well as an app that enables them to capitalize on that understanding.