Source: TEMENOS Group
TEMENOS Group (SWX: TEMN), the provider of integrated core banking systems, today announced that Banco Popular y de Desarrollo Comunal (Banco Popular), one of the largest retail banks in Costa Rica, has selected TEMENOS T24 (T24) to replace its core banking platform.
T24 will support the Bank's critical credit, deposits and client relationships business, servicing 120 branches and 1.5 million customer accounts.
Established in 1969 as a community bank offering financial services to the working class social group in Costa Rica, Banco Popular is now one of the leading retail banks in Central America. Gerardo Porras, CEO of Banco Popular says: "Following dramatic customer growth in recent years, we realised we needed a core banking system that would enable us to increase our product reach and ensure greater take up of these new products within the market. Our legacy system could only provide a fragmented customer view, so complete customer management was not possible. Our existing system was also expensive to maintain. We were looking for a proven, integrated core banking platform that could support all of our operations and allow us to roll out new and innovative banking products quickly and efficiently. T24 will allow us to place our customers at the centre of our business and focus on client relationship management. The T24 Model Bank approach will also ensure a safe and lower cost implementation."
From an initial list of 13 suppliers, Banco Popular received proposals from three vendors including Fiserv CBS and ASI, at the final stage of a three year evaluation process, before signing the deal with Temenos on 20 November 2007. T24 will replace the Bank's legacy core processing systems which have been in place for the last 20 years. The Bank will implement Temenos Model Bank, which draws on Temenos' experience of over 600 implementations and includes pre-configured products and processes for banking best practice to reduce implementation time and costs, minimise customisation and lower the project risk.
The Temenos Latin America-based Professional Services team will roll out the T24 system which will include functionality for deposits, credit, general ledger, teller, internet banking and international trade. The system will be deployed on Sun Solaris servers with Oracle database, and is expected to go live in 2010.
Andreas Andreades, CEO Temenos, adds: "I am delighted to welcome Banco Popular to Temenos and T24, it is an important win for us because it extends our presence in Central America. It also reconfirms that T24 is increasingly the package of choice in the retail core banking market. We firmly believe that our superior package approach differentiates us from all other competing vendors in the retail core banking market and delivers the richest functionality with the lowest cost of ownership. More importantly our product packaging approach ensures that Banco Popular can take advantage of our high product investment by being able to upgrade to future releases of T24. I am confident that it will exceed the Bank's expectations and will secure its leading position in its market."