Bermuda Commercial Bank (BCB) has gone live with Temenos’ T24 core banking system (R13). The bank has also implemented Temenos’ business intelligence and analytics tool, Insight, and an AML solution.

Sofgen, a Switzerland-based specialist IT consultancy and integration firm (now part of Tech Mahindra), carried out the implementation. The project was 18 months in the making.

Earlier, Sofgen also helped BCB to implement a new omnichannel banking system, NETteller, supplied by NETinfo. The new digital banking platform went live in late 2015. It interfaces to the T24 core banking system.

“The challenge was to implement simultaneously a number of different products to replace all incumbent systems in a big-bang approach,” says Ashok Sharma, director, Sofgen Americas.

Peter Horton, CEO at BCB, adds that the implementation was “a huge collaborative effort” between BCB and its partners. “It resulted in a very successful go-live weekend,” he states.

BCB is one of Bermuda’s four licensed banks and the only one to focus corporate and private wealth clients.

BCB’s technology overhaul: the long and winding road

BCB has been on the tech modernisation path since 2010. However, the first attempt to replace the legacy core system ended in failure.

BCB had been using Misys’ Bankmaster for nearly 20 years. It was then convinced by Misys to move onto a newer product, Bankfusion (now known as FusionBanking). It was hoping to go live with the new system by the end of 2010, but two years later the project was still underway with no end in sight.

The bank was experiencing major problems – and Misys did not deny it. The vendor’s CEO at the time, Bret Bolin, commented that “ups and downs” were typical for any core banking implementation, BCB no exception. However, he assured that “a good plan forward” was in place and the BCB venture would become “a success story”.

But by 2013, the Misys project was scrapped. There were also a number of management changes at BCB, including on the IT and operations side. BCB went to market for a new core banking system and this time, it evaluated Temenos with its T24 offering and ERI with Olympic.

The contract with Temenos was signed in Q1 2014.