and services, remained the same, said Arnott. The componentisation of T24 continued although Arnott also claimed the vendor needed to be ‘a lot more holistic about embracing, as an organisation, all of our products, and adopting a more balanced approach to selling them’ as he felt there had been far too much focus simply on T24. Around the same time, Arnott confirmed to IBS that a number of T24 implementations that were struggling had been curtailed, although he did not divulge the details of the banks in question. This was a one-off, strategic decision, he stated, and ‘today there are no plans to stop any other projects or to have any more write-offs’. The European unit, in particular, has seemingly not performed particularly well in recent years with the outcomes of a number of projects in the region
in question. Nonetheless, the Islamic banking gains continued in 2012. In the early part of the year, T24 was taken by the United Installment Sales Co (UIS) in Saudi Arabia, for Islamic real estate financing and vehicle leasing operations. Another win came at Jordan Ahli Bank (formerly Jordan National Bank), the oldest bank in the country and the third largest by assets. The bank had 52 branches in Jordan and a presence in Lebanon, Cyprus and Palestine. As part of the selection, it visited other Temenos users in the country such as Cairo Amman Bank and Capital Bank of Jordan, both of which had long-standing projects to implement the system.
Strong competition
There was some disappointment, however, in the second half of the year as it became clear that Malaysia-based Islamic bank, Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad, was back on the market searching for a new core banking system. An earlier selection, which saw T24 as the winner, drew complaints from Silverlake and, as a result, the decision to implement Temenos was declared void. In 2009, it had signed with Path Solutions to implement its flagship Islamic core system, iMAL, but by the second half of 2011, the bank was known to be reconsidering the project. Historically, Path has been a strong competitor for Temenos in the Islamic banking arena and the growing success enjoyed by Temenos versus this vendor in recent years is a mark of just how far T24’s Islamic support has come. Path gained three Islamic wins in 2011 (compared with Temenos’ four) and four in 2010 (versus Temenos’ seven). Nevertheless, Path made some gains versus Temenos in 2012, with iMAL selected at Oman-based institutions Bank Sohar and Bank Dhofar, as well as at Banque Populaire de Mauritanie (BPM) in Mauritania. Temenos has had setbacks - delivery issues, a few failures - but
overall its progress has been upwards. Under Koukis, who now has a non-executive role, the company became one of the powerhouses of the core systems market. Product-wise, T24 is broad, has rich functionality and has had a technology refresh; there has also been the acquisitions, mainly adding user bases or complementary products. Throughout a rather rocky couple of years in other areas of the company, Islamic banking has seemingly been a success story. Temenos maintained the quantity of new name deals in 2012 and 2013, while other suppliers’ totals fell away. It continues to hold its
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own in the Shari’ah banking space, bolstered by its other attributes of breadth of functionality, geographical reach, professional sales and marketing, and wide installed
base.Two Indonesian wins in 2012 had an Islamic requirement. These were Bank Permata, a broad implementation that included treasury and trade finance, and Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional, focused on microfinance, plus the aforementioned UIS in Saudi Arabia. There was a considerably larger haul in 2013, with ten of Temenos’ total of 35. These included Arab Investment Bank in Egypt, Bank of the Maldives, Crane Bank in Uganda, another four in Indonesia, Export Development Bank in Sudan, and Sharjah Islamic Bank in UAE (replacing Misys’ Equation). One bank that evaluated T24 for Islamic banking during 2013 but
rejected it was Bank Muscat. The largest bank in Oman, it ultimately signed for iMAL, for its Islamic banking window, Meethaq. Bank Muscat was a long-standing user of T24 for conventional banking, and iMAL for Islamic banking at its locations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Bank Muscat’s head of Islamic banking, Muhammad Nadeem Aslam, said Meethaq initially used its parent bank’s T24 system to begin operations in January 2013. ‘We opened to the public using T24 for commercial banking, but made some tweaks for Islamic banking functionality.’ Meethaq’s team wanted to trial T24 before deciding whether to opt for the system or go for a specialised set-up, he explains, and so a thorough analysis was carried out. Meethaq acknowledged that a specialised Islamic banking system was the most appropriate route to take, and so a tender was issued. A shortlist was drawn up, featuring the incumbent T24, ITS with Ethix, Silverlake with SIBS and Path Solutions with iMAL. One factor weighing in Path’s favour was the way in which the vendor incorporated past client requirements into the system, so that new takers could utilise them, said Nadeem Aslam. iMAL was taken in to cover Islamic retail and corporate banking, customer finance, SME, treasury and asset management.
Islamic Report
www.ibsintelligence.com
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