Temenos continues to expand AML client base and celebrates launch of ARC Mobile with first customer

2 August 2010 – Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the market leading provider of banking software, today announced that the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), the country’s largest bank with more than two million customers, has selected Temenos to transform its entire operational infrastructure across more than 200 branches. CBE’s operational improvement plans will modernise its services to its growing client base in Ethiopia as part of its vision to become a World Class bank in the region. CBE is a government owned bank which offers a range of retail banking services, which has already opened a subsidiary company in Southern Sudan with plans to extend its services to other East African countries.

“Temenos’ software delivers all the functionality and efficiencies we need to match a world class commercial bank. Its dedicated investment in product development to continually meet the needs of its clients and their customers was a very compelling proposition for us. The lack of flexibility and homogeneity in our current systems impacts product innovation, service delivery, risk management and cost control. Being able to replace all systems with T24 will deliver a single view of the business and customer and therefore provide a better understanding of our customers to improve services, enable us to effectively monitor and manage risk and lower our total cost of ownership. We will have an enormous wealth of functionality and flexibility to develop a wide range of new products, enabling us to strengthen our presence in the retail space, as well as penetrate new markets in the face of increased competition”, commented Ato Bekalu Zeleke, President, Commercial Bank of Ethiopia.

CBE will replace seven systems with TEMENOS T24 (T24), including its Misys Bankmaster legacy platform and interfacing systems covering financial message and local money transfer, trade service and card banking. This deal marks the launch of TEMENOS ARC Mobile (ARC Mobile), as Temenos’ first adopter of the solution following its acquisition of mobile banking provider FE Mobile. ARC Mobile will provide CBE with multi channel mobile capability to penetrate the unbanked market by offering mobile banking services with advanced cash management capabilities including SMS alerts, interactive SMS and XHTML browser. CBE will also deploy TEMENOS AML (AML) to screen all payments and transactions for Sanctions, Prohibition of Business Activity and Anti Terrorist Financing in accordance with government mandates to drive risk management and compliance practices across the country.

Temenos’ software was benchmarked against solutions from Oracle FS and Infosys and proved to be the most functionally rich platform to deliver end to end operational support and broaden CBE’s service offering, such as mobile banking, to enter new markets. Temenos and CBE will jointly implement the software in a phased roll out, with the first stage expected to go live in 2011.

Keith Stonell, Regional Director, Temenos commented: “This deal underscores the success of our product roadmap and acquisition strategies to offer banks a one stop shop for all their banking needs. Our market leading levels of R&D investment ensure we deliver openness and best of breed functionality to lower costs, improve efficiencies and enhance product delivery capability and in turn, increase profitability for our clients. We are delighted to be helping CBE transform its business to deliver the agility and adaptability it needs to effectively perform in an increasingly competitive market”.