Ariful Islam, chief operating officer, Meezan Bank, says: "We needed to update our core banking system to support our planned future growth and to maintain our position as Pakistan's leading Islamic bank. We have already achieved successful results with T24's treasury module and the level of local support available for the product was one of the factors that tilted our final decision to implement the complete T24 solution."



Meezan Bank originally deployed the T24 treasury module in November 2005. Subsequently, the bank realised that it needed to replace the locally-developed Islamic Banker system which it had been using since 1996. After a year-long selection process, during which time it considered a number of leading local and international solutions, Meezan Bank signed the deal with Temenos in March 2007.



Temenos will implement T24 Model Bank, which incorporates pre-configured functionality and processes for banking best practice to reduce the implementation time and costs, minimise customisation and lower the project risk. This will also include the T24 Pakistan Country Platform, with specific functionality to meet local banking requirements and regulations.



T24 is a functionally rich, thin client, scalable, integrated, modular banking system. It is built on an open system principles and uses established technology standards such as HTTP, XML and HTML. It offers a single client view across the enterprise and can support large numbers of users with true non-stop resilience. Its fully-integrated architecture enables it to offer a significant cost advantage compared to other competing products. It offers multiple application server support and is the only system available with no end-of-day batch processing and so can genuinely boast of providing real-time 24/7 non-stop banking.



Meezan Bank plans to add Temenos T-Risk, the company's advanced risk management and analysis application, and Temenos ARC for customer relationship managemeent and workflow once T24 has been successfully implemented.



Andreas Andreades, CEO, Temenos, says: "Our implementation at Meezan Bank is highly significant as the Islamic banking market grows both in Pakistan and other countries. The choice of T24 by Pakistan's largest Islamic bank demonstrates the flexibility and comprehensive functionality of our product, including its ability to accommodate the Sharia banking principles without modification."