The firm is already moving a network of 12 Mexican financial institutions from a traditional hosted environment onto the Windows Azure platform, with five - Sofol Tepeyac, Grupo Agrifin, Findeca, Soficam and C.Capital Global - expected to go live by Q2.

Temenos says that the combination of T24 and Windows Azure, including SQL Azure, allows banks to remove the high data centre costs associated with running a multi-application environment by moving these operations to a consumption based pricing model.

By tapping the cloud, banks can save time and money on provisioning and operating hardware resources because running T24 natively on Windows Azure enables them to scale resources effectively and increase volume according to customer demand.

Karen Cone, general manager, worldwide financial services, Microsoft, says: "This will provide a differentiating edge to banks, helping them lower costs, enhance operations, and build new, mission-critical business opportunities with flexibility and a rapid time to market."

Bart Narter, SVP, banking, Celent, adds: "Hosting T24 on Microsoft's Azure platform gives financial institutions anywhere in the world the ability to deploy the system on a per use basis. Giving customers this option opens up entire new markets for both Azure and T24."

Temenos claims T24 is the first core banking system to go into production with clients on Windows Azure, beating rival Misys to the punch. The British firm revealed at Sibos in October that it has entered into a strategic alliance with Microsoft that will enable it to deliver banking and capital markets applications through Azure.