Assaray

Trade and Investment Bank Striving to become the leading digital bank in North Africa by delivering innovative, customer-centric services

Tripoli, Libya

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At a Glance

 Supports 40% growth in customer volumes and 40% boost in assets under management

● Enables the launch of first-of-a-kind funds transfer services via mobile and online

●  50% faster to launch new products to the market

●  Went live in just 10 months despite significant disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic

●  Breaks new ground as the 1st Libyan bank to deploy the Temenos digital platform

Already one of the top banks in Libya, Assaray Trade and Investment Bank (ATIB) has ambitious plans to become the leading digital bank not only in its home market but across the whole North African region. To achieve this, ATIB focuses on delivering first-class services that win growing numbers of customers, while building streamlined internal operations to attract the very best banking talents.

Farouk K. Laabidi, General Manager, ATIB, explains: “10 years ago, ATIB primarily focused its efforts on the corporate market. However, with the ever-increasing demand for retail online and mobile banking services among consumers, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the bank has strategically expanded its services into the retail banking space. Targeting these digitally-savvy customers is a key strategic goal for us.”

Setting the standard for innovation

Operating in Libya presents significant challenges for banks, as the country’s national infrastructure is currently in the process of development and its political situation has experienced some periods of unpredictability, which can present slowness to growth. Many banks have been unrushed to embrace digital technologies, with some not fully integrated to the national payment system and unable to accept all types of electronic transfers. But where other service providers see limitations, ATIB recognizes huge opportunities for building long-term success. ATIB believes that innovation is a matter of culture, it starts from the top, and all employees are encouraged to embrace it.

Farouk K. Laabidi continues: “We have focused on digital transformation since 2014, bringing many innovative services to market. For example, during the difficult times of cash shortages in the period of 2016–2019, we were one of the leading banks to launch reliable prepaid payment cards and offer an electronic wallet application that allows users to purchase goods via their mobile devices. As well as enhancing and developing new digital services, we are now excited by the possibilities of open banking.”

However, ATIB realized that its existing core and digital banking solutions were starting to restrict its ability to innovate. Building tailored services for different customer segments was a difficult, time-consuming process, and the bank did not have the modern API functionality to interface with third-party services. To sharpen its competitive edge, ATIB started to look for a more advanced, customer-centric solution.

Choosing a solution with extensive capabilities

Keen to overhaul and modernize many components of its banking infrastructure, ATIB looked for a partner with extensive knowledge and experience of large-scale transformation projects. The bank decided to deploy an integrated suite of core and digital banking solutions from Temenos including Temenos Analytics, and Temenos Payments.

We knew that Temenos is a global leader for core banking solutions, and they demonstrated deep understanding of our challenges and the future of the banking sector. Temenos technology is very impressive, especially the product development and API integration capabilities, which would allow us to connect to many different third-party services.”

Farouk Laadibi, General Manager, ATIB

Adopting a remote deployment model

Working with Temenos and Temenos business partner Prema Consulting, ATIB kicked off the implementation of the solutions, starting with Temenos core banking in a two-phase project that was completed in just ten months. To optimize performance and efficiency, the bank runs the core platform on the Microsoft Azure public cloud.

Dunia M. Ajaj, Head of PMO at ATIB, comments: “The implementation was complex, and we experienced huge disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After one month we faced severe travel restrictions, but Temenos showed great flexibility by switching to a remote deployment strategy. Going live in ten months was a great result, with Temenos delivering excellent support to keep the project moving forward.”

Muawiya Abu Jubain, CEO, Prema-C, added “We believe that ATIB’s project is a strategic project for us, knowing the ambitions the bank management and employees have in deploying the world renowned Temenos core banking system. And we wanted to be part of this exciting journey that brings growth and innovation to ATIB. Despite the pandemic, we managed to reach the bank’s goal of going live in a record time of ten months. This could have never been achieved without the dedication of ATIB’s team, Prema consultants, and the Temenos project management team and consultants.”

Transforming the customer experience

Using Temenos core banking, ATIB enhanced many of its customer services. For example, the bank used the rich integration functionality of the Temenos solution to deliver greater flexibility to customers using its prepaid payment cards. Whenever users need to top up their card with funds from their electronic wallet or account, they can now manage the process quickly and easily via their mobile device.

Temenos core banking delivers so many great capabilities; from high levels of security to close control over financing arrangements. We have also halved our time to market for new products and services with the Temenos solution.”

Abdulmohaimen M. Matoug, Head of Digital Transformation, ATIB

Using Temenos Analytics, ATIB adopted a more customer-centric approach to development, as Farouk K. Laabidi explains: “With our old core platform, we could not gain a detailed picture of customer behavior. Using Temenos Analytics, we analyze their preferences and requirements in depth, and build more relevant, personalized offerings closely aligned with their financial needs and lifestyles.”

Breaking new ground in the Libyan market

Since then, ATIB has worked with Prema Consulting to implement Temenos digital banking platform – becoming the first bank in North Africa to harness the cutting-edge capabilities of the solution. The bank went live on an on-premises instance of the solution in a phased deployment process, with the business partner helping to integrate the platform with Temenos core banking and a series of third-party solutions.

ATIB has used Temenos to develop and launch a brand new feature-rich digital banking service for retail and corporate clients: ATIB Online. Accessible web and mobile app, that allows users to manage their accounts, monitor transactions, top up local and international payment cards in various currencies, and purchase mobile phone vouchers thanks to integrations with several network operators and internet service providers.

In another breakthrough move, ATIB recently added transferring funds between two bank accounts within Libya, as Farouk K Laabidi explains: “We added an integration with the national payment system to allow users to transfer money online or via their mobile. This represents a first-of-a-kind service for the Libyan market, so once again we are leading the way in terms of innovation.”

Offering customers the speed and convenience of transacting online without having to head to a bank branch has had a hugely positive impact on satisfaction levels. And ATIB Bank plans to add more products and services to the digital application, as Farouk K Laabidi notes: “We are around 60 percent of the way towards reaching our digitalization objectives. We are planning to use Temenos digital banking to create online loan origination and onboarding workflows in 2024, and we will also implement Temenos Payments Hub.”

Reaching new customers

The partnership with Temenos is helping ATIB to achieve its goal of increasing market share and becoming one of the banking leaders in Libya and beyond. The enhanced portfolio of products and services has contributed to a 40 percent boost in customer volumes, and the bank has grown its assets under management by 40 percent since partnering with Temenos. In particular, during the first three months of offering ATIB Online, the platform gained 5,000 new users—and is now aiming to onboard 20,000 by the end of 2023, and 100,000 by the end of 2026.

Working with the Temenos solutions, we are reaching more clients than ever before. Not only are we consolidating our leadership in the corporate banking space, but we are extending our share of the retail banking market, too. As we launch more digital services with Temenos digital banking platform, we are confident that this upwards trend will continue well into the future.”

Dunia M. Ajaj, Head of PMO, ATIB

A Step Ahead of the Competition

Within ATIB, the Temenos solutions have had a significant impact on workflow efficiency. Higher levels of automation removed the need for manual interventions during many key processes, enabling employees to work more productively and reducing overall costs. Furthermore, this focus on efficiency has helped ATIB reduce its cost-to-income by up to 15 percent, and to achieve a strong return on equity of between 15 and 17 percent.

ATIB also believes that deploying a modern, world-leading suite of banking solutions will help to attract the brightest bankers in Libya.

As the Libyan banking market becomes more digitalized and embraces Open Banking, ATIB is in prime position to take full advantage, as Abdulmohaimen M. Matoug explains: “The Temenos solutions will enable us to integrate with many different partners, not only among financial services providers but also airlines and utilities companies to provide customers with more convenient payment methods.”

With Temenos, we believe the sky is the limit on what we can achieve. Whatever innovative ideas we conceive, we know we can develop and bring them to market using the solutions. Thanks to our partnership with Temenos, we are moving towards our goal of becoming the leading digital bank in Libya and the wider region and staying well ahead of our competition.”

Dunia M. Ajaj, Head of PMO, ATIB

We partnered successfully with Prema Consulting

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

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.


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Alex Bank

Outpacing Australia’s market-leaders with ultra-fast, AI-powered banking services

Brisbane, Australia

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At a Glance

  • 2 mins 40 seconds to provide loan decisions, significantly faster than domestic competitors
  • 4.8 out of 5 Trustpilot TrustScore, far exceeding the banking category average of 3.4 out of 5
  • 2100% growth in deposit portfolio and 66% growth in lending portfolio since ADI issued in December 2022

With offices in Sydney and Brisbane, Alex Bank is a 100 percent digital challenger bank, committed to providing customers in Australia with faster, fairer, and more flexible financial solutions. Alex Bank serves individuals and small businesses across the country with a range of retail and commercial banking products.

Simon Beitz, CEO of Alex Bank, takes up the story: “Our domestic market is dominated by four banks with a combined market share of around 85 percent. We surveyed 2,500 prospective customers about their frustrations with their current banks. We found that one of the biggest pain points was slow service. With legacy banks, applications for savings accounts, loans, and mortgages can often take several weeks to complete. We saw an opportunity to shape higher-quality retail and commercial banking experiences by removing the friction from these journeys.”

Targeting the optimal core banking platform

As a newly authorized deposit-taking institution (ADI) licensed by the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA), Alex Bank looked for the optimal technology stack to help it deliver outstanding customer experiences. Compliant, always-on digital services were a must, and the bank targeted a core banking platform that could support its long-term goals.

We want to be the most efficient bank in Australia, with a cost-to-income ratio of 30 percent or lower. To deliver seamless digital services to thousands of customers with a lean team of just 38 people, we knew we had to develop highly automated systems and processes. Choosing the optimal core banking platform would be a key enabler of this strategy, and we set out to find the right partner.”

Simon Beitz, CEO, Alex Bank

Building a platform for service innovation

To lay the foundation for next-generation services, Alex Bank selected Temenos core banking on Temenos SaaS, deployed on a resilient and highly available platform.

“We evaluated potential vendors against several criteria, including industry experience, access to support, and a proven track record of successful deployments,” recalls Beitz. “Temenos met all our operational and technical requirements for a new core banking platform. As well as having global reach, Temenos has a very strong footprint in Australia, which gave us the confidence we could get effective support whenever we needed it. Temenos core banking can be customized flexibly and deployed rapidly, which allows us to address stringent regulatory requirements without sacrificing our challenger bank agility.”

Accelerating deployment, reducing costs

By deploying Temenos core banking on SaaS, Alex Bank accelerated its core banking implementation while avoiding the significant capital and operational costs associated with deploying an on-premises infrastructure.

Beitz elaborates: “Temenos SaaS offers us many advantages over an on-premises approach. With managed services from Temenos, we are free from the burden of maintaining our infrastructure, which empowers staff to add value in other areas of the business. We can also scale Temenos core banking quickly and easily as we grow—a big advantage for a challenger bank. Crucially, Temenos SaaS offers us mature security and high availability capabilities, giving us the peace of mind that our organization and our customers are always protected.”

Unlocking vital insights

Working with an expert team from Temenos, Alex Bank leveraged the solution’s built-in tools to tailor its banking products to meet the needs and expectations of its target market, and to design Temenos Analytics reports to deliver business insights to management and leadership teams.

 “We can modify business rules in Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation with minimal support from Temenos, saving time and effort and helping us to keep pace with the needs of the business.”

Rocketing ahead in the Australian market

Through its collaboration with Temenos, Alex Bank is rapidly establishing itself as one of Australia’s fastest-growing financial organizations.

Our goal isn’t simply to offer slightly faster services than our banking competitors. We want to deliver experiences that match the speed and convenience of our customers’ favorite brands — for example, e-commerce retailers. To realize our vision, we’ve designed every stage of every journey with the customer experience at the center.”

Simon Beitz, CEO, Alex Bank

“Our goal isn’t simply to offer slightly faster services than our banking competitors,” explains Beitz. “We want to deliver experiences that match the speed and convenience of our customers’ favorite brands — for example, e-commerce retailers. To realize our vision, we’ve designed every stage of every journey with the customer experience at the center.”

Providing decisions in seconds

By combining the capabilities of Temenos core banking with its own AI technologies, the bank is delivering lending decisions and onboarding customers within minutes, speeding ahead of its competitors.

“We have created a smart, real-time credit decisioning system called Alex Intelligence™, which uses data analytics to accurately assess an applicant’s credit risk,” explains Beitz. “For unsecured loans, we’ve compressed the entire customer application process down to two minutes and 40 seconds. When a customer applies via their digital device, we can give them a decision significantly faster than our competitors and deposit the money to their account within as little as three hours. We’ve since expanded to secured personal loans, and next we plan to build a similar offering for small business owners.”

Nurturing customer loyalty

Alex Bank’s relentless focus on the customer experience is already paying dividends. The organization is racing ahead of its competitors with a Trustpilot TrustScore of 4.8/5, far exceeding the banking category average of 3.4/5.

“We are now measuring a satisfaction score of 81.7/100 on Trustpilot, which shows that our approach is really resonating with our customers,” says Beitz. “Our growth trajectory is so steep that we’re often breaking our own daily records for new lending and deposits. Since ADI issued in 21DEC22, deposits have increased by 2100 percent and lending has grown by 66 percent. These results contributed to Alex Bank receiving Fast Starter awards from both Deloitte and the Australian Financial Review.”

Planning for the future

Looking ahead, Alex Bank plans to work with Temenos to bring its mortgage offering for small business owners to market, and the bank expects to achieve profitable operations within a matter of months.

We have high expectations of Temenos, and Temenos continues to meet those expectations by helping us get innovative products to market rapidly. Having Temenos as our core banking partner is integral to delivering excellent customer experiences and staying ahead in a highly competitive industry. We’re excited to build on what we’ve achieved with Temenos core banking on SaaS.”

Simon Beitz, CEO, Alex Bank

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Apex Bank

Advancing financial inclusion with a centralized banking platform.

Accra, Ghana,

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At a Glance

•  Cuts customer onboarding times by 75%, down from 2 hours to under 30 minutes

• Helps rural and community banks to increase financial inclusion with user-friendly mobile banking

• Ensures client banks meet compliance objectives with real-time transaction monitoring

Founded in 2000, ARB Apex Bank PLC operates as a ‘mini’ central bank for almost 150 rural and community banks located across Ghana. Managing over GH₵ 7 billion in total assets, ARB Apex Bank supports more than half of the banking sector in the African country, providing digital banking, cheque processing, remittance, and correspondent banking services, as well as issuing government securities.

A spokesperson at the bank comments: “Our core mission is to help rural and community banks improve financial inclusion throughout Ghana. We aim to achieve this by delivering a range of centralized banking services to these institutions, which enable them to offer convenient, user-friendly banking products to their customers in a highly secure, regulated way.”

Listen to Michael Appiah, Head of Operations at ARB Apex talking about how ARB Apex Bank partnered with Temenos to modernize core banking and drive financial inclusion across Ghana’s rural communities.

Improving financial inclusion

Estimates from the Bank of Ghana indicate that 7.3 million adults in the country do not have bank accounts*. The national government is working to reverse this by prioritizing financial inclusion initiatives through the establishment of rural and community banks across the country. But to reach as many citizens as possible, these institutions rely on support from larger banks. And this is where ARB Apex Bank PLC aims to make a difference.

A spokesperson at the bank explains: “Rural and community banks are typically located far from cities and financial centers, so often struggle to access high-performance, dependable banking infrastructure. For example, some rely on siloed legacy systems and manual processes, which limits their ability to develop and offer innovative services and stay up to date with national compliance rules.”

Crucially, many rural and community banks lacked the ability to monitor customer transactions in real-time—generating significant risk. With new regulations in Ghana set to come into force requiring real-time transaction screening, the bank set out to help.

ARB Apex Bank PLC planned to offer a new set of services that would help the smaller banks keep pace with the regulatory change. Alongside this, the bank aimed to provide enhanced core banking functionality to client banks, along with the capabilities for them to launch digital banking services to reach a wider range of citizens.

Taking a centralized approach

To deliver the new suite of core banking, digital banking, and fraud prevention solutions to rural and community banks, ARB Apex Bank PLC teamed up with Temenos. The bank decided to build a centralized banking platform powered by Temenos core banking with Financial Inclusion capabilities, Temenos Digital Banking Platform, and Temenos Financial Crime Management (FCM).

One of the main reasons we selected Temenos core banking is because it offers a multi-tenancy environment, as we are aiming to support well over one hundred banks, we would need to provide secure, dedicated transaction processing resources for each bank. We considered a wide range of vendors and found that only Temenos was able to meet our needs, while also providing excellent reliability and performance.”

Spokesperson at the bank

Today, ARB Apex Bank uses Temenos Solutions to support 147 rural and community banks, which have a combined total of 850 branches. ARB Apex Bank delivers core and digital banking services to these client banks through its secure private cloud environment based in Accra as one of the largest data centers in Ghana. Rural and community banks connect via radio, VSAT, and fibre networks to send and receive transactions in real-time. ARB Apex Bank PLC also leverages Temenos FCM to help its clients monitor transactions as they happen.

A spokesperson at the bank adds: “Temenos and its delivery partners Inlaks and TextGenesis were very helpful throughout the implementation, from installing and configuring our core banking solution to deploying the mobile and online banking tools. If we ever encounter an issue, Temenos are always on hand to provide a fast resolution. They’ve even gone the extra mile to help ensure that we satisfy the unique regulatory requirements of the Ghanaian banking sector.”

Driving digital innovation

Using Temenos Digital Banking Platform, ARB Apex Bank PLC is enabling rural and community banks to offer convenient, secure, and reliable mobile banking that makes it easy for their end customers to access vital financial services.

“We’re proud of the many innovations we’ve made with Temenos Digital Banking Platform,” says a spokesperson at the bank. “For instance, we’ve made it possible for customers of rural and community banks to use mobile banking services, which means they no longer have to spend time traveling to a branch to send and receive payments. Similarly, we are working with social enterprises to create a field collection service that enables small business owners to deposit money with approved agents in community hubs like markets.”

What’s more, we have helped rural and community banks to onboard customers more quickly, often cutting out the need for in-branch verification and authentication processes. Using Temenos digital banking Platform, we have cut time for our client banks to complete customer onboarding by over 75 percent, down from 2 hours to under 30 minutes—contributing to a better customer experience.”

Spokesperson at the bank

Since rolling out the Temenos solutions, ARB Apex Bank PLC has seen significant growth in customer deposits among its client banks. Mobile and digital banking has proved especially popular among traditionally unbanked communities. As of December 2021, ARB Apex Bank is managing the equivalent of USD $900 million in deposits, and the bank expects this figure to rise as more customers sign up with client banks.

Enhancing regulatory compliance

The Temenos solutions have also helped ARB Apex Bank PLC to enhance regulatory compliance and financial crime monitoring in the rural and community banking sector.

“Temenos FCM has been a real game-changer for us,” explains the spokesperson at the bank. “It enables us to send and monitor high volumes of transactions in real time while using up minimal network bandwidth. With Temenos FCM, we can maintain a high level of transparency into transactions to prevent fraud and other illegal activity, and ensure that smaller rural and community banks comply with stringent national regulations.”

Looking ahead, ARB Apex Bank PLC is exploring the possibility of moving its suite of Temenos solutions into the Temenos Banking Cloud—a move that will help to reduce operational IT costs and increase agility.

We’re excited about the potential savings we could achieve with the Temenos Banking Cloud. We have built a very fruitful relationship with Temenos, and we are confident that we will continue to work closely on future projects. Our Temenos solutions are a crucial part of our success in bringing much-needed financial services to unbanked communities across Ghana.”

Spokesperson at the bank

We partnered successfully with Inlaks

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UBL

Delivering innovative, market-leading digital banking services at scale

Karachi, Pakistan

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United Bank Limited (UBL) is one of the largest banks in Pakistan with 11 million customers. In Pakistan, UBL stands apart as a pioneer of ingenious, user-friendly digital banking products and services. In recent times, the rapidly-growing bank has launched the first digital Islamic bank accounts available in the country, along with a unique mobile payment app. The pioneer in digital banking, UBL is working with Temenos and Systems to further leverage the Temenos platform to provide an integrated, digital experience for all retail and corporate customers, covering the entire customer lifecycle from onboarding and origination to servicing.

UBL has gone live with Corporate Lending on Temenos digital banking platform as part of a comprehensive digital transformation of the bank’s retail, SME and corporate banking for domestic and international customers on the Temenos platform. Temenos Digital Banking is the leader in driving customer acquisition and digital banking engagement with its scalable platform, deep analytics, and AI scoring models. The platform enables banks to increase digital revenues and reduce customer onboarding time significantly. The go-live covers loan originations to five segments, including large conventional banking corporates and group companies, Islamic banking corporates, Agri enterprises, Financial Institutions and Small & Medium Enterprises.

We are delighted to go live with corporate lending on Temenos digital banking platform. The solution enables us to elevate the digital experience for corporate customers and achieve operational excellence, helping us to increase customer satisfaction and drive revenue growth. We look forward to building on this success and our close partnership with Temenos and NdcTech.”

Spokesperson at UBL

The Temenos Corporate Loan Origination solution, implemented with NdcTech, will help UBL to meet the growing demand for digital customer experiences and win business with corporate clients in a highly competitive lending market that has seen demand slowed by global economic conditions and rising interest rates. Temenos solution enables UBL to strengthen its position as a digital leader, delivering seamless online experiences across the entire customer lifecycle—from onboarding and origination to account management. With these banking capabilities integrated into Temenos digital banking platform, UBL can provide a smooth and seamless digital experience while enabling the bank’s corporate lending teams to access the right data at the right time to make quick, consistent and cost-effective credit decisions.

This partnership with Temenos and NdcTech is a great catalyst in our digital transformation journey. We are very excited to make this a part of our strategic objective of becoming more agile and tailor our platform to better serve the rapidly changing needs of our customers.”

Spokesperson at UBL

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Al Ain Finance PJSC

A new digital bank built rapidly for the SME market

Abu Dhabi, UAE

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At a Glance

  • 1st Finance company in MEA to run front-to back banking solutions on the Temenos banking cloud.
  • Built a new digital bank from scratch in 2 months.
  • 1st time in MEA direct interface from the core banking to the central bank without a middle system.
  • A leading innovator in the SME market thanks to the new digital capabilities and channels.
Side view of woman sitting on a chair. Her laptop is resting on the small table in front of her. She is participating in a video call.

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) represent 94 percent of all companies operating in the United Arab Emirates, and play a pivotal role in the country’s prosperity. For these thousands of companies, success often depends on fast access to liquidity—but in many cases, raising loans through traditional banking channels means navigating complex, paperwork-heavy processes..

This is where Al Ain Finance PJSC wants to make banking better. Founded in Abu Dhabi in 2016 and regulated by the Central Bank of the UAE, the company looks to provide simple, transparent, and practical alternative finance solutions—without the usual hassle and hidden costs. With this client-oriented and innovative approach, Al Ain Finance PJSC aims to help SMEs across the Emirates to gain the working capital they need to thrive.

Selecting digital solutions
on the Temenos banking cloud

Since it began operating in 2017, Al Ain Finance built a positive reputation among clients, particularly for its trade finance services. For the next stage of its growth journey, the finance company targeted a broader portfolio, adding enhanced lending, deposits, payments, and digital services. This strategy, Al Ain Finance believed, would help to sharpen its competitive edge, appeal to more potential clients, and win greater market share.

After assessing offerings from several vendors, Al Ain Finance chose Temenos digital and core banking on the Temenos banking cloud to replace its legacy in-house system and achieve end-to-end digital transformation. The front-to-back digital banking offering on Temenos banking cloud will provide the broadest out-of-the-box functionality for Al Ain Finance to deliver differentiated digital experiences to SMEs. The Temenos banking cloud will be hosted on Microsoft Azure and meant that it could be remotely implemented, simplify its digital business model, and drive operational efficiencies.

Some of our business leaders had worked with Temenos at other institutions, and reported very positive experiences. They knew that Temenos provides exceptional capabilities, which very few of our competitors in this region possess. Also, the Temenos cloud delivery model offers huge advantages to us, as we could avoid the added complexity and costs of managing infrastructure, which would have been very difficult without a dedicated IT team working round-the-clock. The Temenos banking cloud will provide us with a pre-packaged, comprehensive corporate banking product to provide superior digital experiences to our SME customers.”

Spokesperson at the bank

Going live in a rapid timeframe

Al Ain Finance managed to implement the new core and digital banking platforms within two months— a proposition made more challenging by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Temenos’ cloud-native, technology was delivered remotely on the Temenos banking cloud to allow the business to respond to increasing demand for digital banking during COVID-19 in the quickest possible timeframe. Temenos and Stoics IT provided the expert resources to complete the go-live for loans, fixed deposits, accounts, payments, and liquidity management solutions within the target date. Soon after, the project team added Temenos digital banking internet and mobile banking functionality and is now working to launch check clearing and direct debits.

Going live so quickly was a great achievement, especially with the disruption caused by the pandemic. Temenos managed the entire process remotely and communicated exceptionally well throughout the implementation. Normally, we would expect a new solution to need some reworking and fine-tuning following the go-live, but with Temenos everything worked from day one”Spokesperson at the bank

Spokesperson at the bank

Setting the standard for digital transformation

With the successful implementation, Al Ain Finance PJSC became one of the first finance companies in the region to harness the latest version of Temenos core banking running in the cloud. In another ground-breaking move, the core platform interfaces directly with the systems of the Central Bank of the UAE to enable clients to make secure, compliant electronic wage transfers. Combined with making banking better by providing SME’s with much needed access to liquidity, fast, we see Al Ain Finance as a true “Changemaker”.

“Even employees with limited experience of modern core systems find the Temenos solutions easy to use,” adds a spokesperson at the bank. “They particularly enjoy being able to access consolidated customer information through a single interface rather than having to click between multiple applications. Although Temenos offers cutting-edge, sophisticated functionality, the learning curve for users was very quick and simple.”

Technology Innovation improving customer experiences

Supported by Temenos, Al Ain Finance achieved its goal of broadening its service portfolio and winning more business among SME clients in the Emirates. The company now offers a comprehensive suite of lending, deposits, and payments products. These include enhanced Wage Protection System (WPS) offerings, which help SMEs to pay their workers in a timely manner, while registering transactions with the Central Bank.

Furthermore, Al Ain Finance now offers clients the flexibility and convenience of managing their accounts via internet or mobile channels. Rather than relying on traditional customer verification methods, the company integrated its digital services with third-party biometric security solutions—enabling clients to use fingerprint and facial recognition to confirm their identity and positioning Al Ain Finance as a leading innovator in the SME market.

Customer feedback for our new products has been excellent. Since the launch of our enhanced service portfolio, we have seen marginal increase in client numbers for our WPS offerings, and overall growth in business volumes. All of these were achieved at a lower operational cost.”

Spokesperson at the bank

Leveraging Technology to drive efficiency

The Temenos solutions also helped Al Ain Finance PJSC to develop faster, more efficient business processes. For example, users previously created reports manually using spreadsheets to collate data. With Temenos core banking, the company can generate reports at the click of a button, ensuring business leaders gain insights into market trends sooner, and enabling employees to focus more time and energy on value-add tasks.

A spokesperson at the bank concludes: “Working with Temenos has been a great experience. Whichever direction that we take, we know that Temenos will provide the solutions, expertise, and implementation support to ensure our success. It is a great partnership, and we look forward to the next stage of the journey.”

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Virgin Money Australia

Launches the digital bank of the future

Queensland, Australia

Post Meta

At a Glance

As part of its digital transformation program, Bank of Queensland unveiled a technology strategy that will drive differentiated customer experiences and sustainable growth through its subsidiary, Virgin Mobile Australia.

Virgin Group Founder, Sir Richard Branson comments: “Virgin Money Australia has an ambition to challenge the status quo in the financial services industry. The new Virgin Money Australia digital bank is the antithesis of a traditional bank: it embraces simplicity and rejects the notion of financial complexity. At the core of the Virgin DNA is a challenger spirit, which brings competition to every industry we enter. I am so proud of the Virgin Money Australia team for living and breathing our DNA when designing and building the new digital bank, and keeping the customer at the heart of their decision-making.”

The new Digital Bank will deliver a truly differentiated and exciting Virgin experience. Importantly, Virgin Money Australia is uniquely positioned to build on our existing relationships with more than 200,000 loyal customers and a home loan portfolio that has quickly grown to more than $3 billion to effectively compete in the Australian market with challenger and incumbent banks alike.”

Greg Boyle, Group Executive, Retail Banking, BOQ Group

Virgin Money Australia leverages Temenos’ front-to-back offering with Temenos core banking, the next generation in core banking and Temenos digital banking, the leading omnichannel digital banking product, on the Temenos Banking Cloud. Accessing the solution through a subscription model, Virgin Money Australia will be able to scale usage based on its business growth.

The new Digital Bank has gone live on Temenos modern cloud-based core banking platform, which provides a frictionless and fully integrated digital experience, bringing together credit cards, transaction and savings accounts, plus a loyalty program in a single, native mobile app. Through the modern app, consumers can open an account in minutes.

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Arab Tunisian Bank

Prospering in the new age of digital banking

Tunis, Tunisia

Post Meta

Since its foundation in 1982, Arab Tunisian Bank (ATB) has carved out a position as a top five bank in Tunisia by offering award-winning retail and corporate products. The bank has recently gone live on Temenos open platform for composable banking looking to transform its banking infrastructure to capitalize on the new digital age. ATB is a mid-sized universal bank serving retail, SME and corporate customers with a staff of 1,300 and 134 branches across the country, awarded as the “Best Commercial Bank in Tunisia” by Global Banking & Finance.

The initial phase of the transformation of its core banking systems for retail and corporate business lines with Temenos frees the bank from legacy constraints to accelerate product delivery and digital growth. The second phase of the implementation includes additional Temenos Core Banking Capabilities and pre-composed Banking Services for Digital Banking, Payments and Enterprise Risk Management. On Temenos open platform, it aims to differentiate itself in the market as a customer-centric bank through technology and innovation. Leveraging the platform’s core and digital banking capabilities to power new growth opportunities, drive efficiencies at scale, and deliver seamless customer experiences.

We are delighted to complete the successful migration of our retail and corporate banking customer accounts to the Temenos Core Banking Platform. This go-live is a major step forward in the bank’s strategic roadmap and to further develop the digital transformation. A modern, agile banking platform is vital for developing distinctive products and services and adapting to changing customer expectations and market evolution. Temenos gives us that agility we need and future-proofs our technology infrastructure to grow sustainably and tap new growth opportunities.”

Ahmed Rjiba, CEO, Arab Tunisian Bank

ATB is a mid-sized universal bank serving retail, SME and corporate customers with a staff of 1,300 and 134 branches across the country, In 2017, the bank was also awarded the “Best Commercial Bank in Tunisia” by Global Banking & Finance. With demand for online and mobile banking rising rapidly in North Africa, Temenos’ next-generation platform, built on microservices and APIs, will allow ATB to quickly and sustainably scale its business. Cloud-native and with an ecosystem built around it, the Temenos platform also enables ATB to open up to fintechs and the possibilities of new business models in the future.

We partnered successfully with ITSSA:

ITSS provides high-quality services for banks with Temenos Transact in parts of Africa, Middle East, Asia and Latin America.

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