Jean-Pierre Brulard, CEO, Temenos, kicked off day one of Temenos Community Forum (TCF) with an opening address after a handover from former CEO Andreas Andreadas.
Brulard started by describing his background in software before coming to his position in Temenos, he stated: “I’m truly excited to lead this new chapter.”
He then outlined some of the increasing challenges which financial providers are facing: “This world is becoming more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, more ambiguous.”
Brulard argued that a successful software industry has two main ingredients: customer centricity and innovation.
“In my career I've seen some very good companies at customer centricity, but they didn't innovate and they were dying or stagnant. I’ve seen very good innovators, but they are lacking customer centricity, and they didn't scale.”
He emphasised that innovations primarily come from customer needs, but it’s Temenos’s job to anticipate some of these key innovations.
He concluded by stating: “What you can expect from me and my executive team is to be always, always, accountable to deliver on commitment.”
Importance of customer journeys
William Moroney, president international, Temenos, was joined on stage by Chuck Kim, executive vice president, chief financial officer, Commerce Bank; Marlou Jenniskens, managing director digital wealth products, ABN AMRO; and Vincent Chatard, COO, Mauritius Commercial Bank.
Kim described what brought Commerce Bank to the decision to modernise their core systems: “Our journey started when we recognise that our existing core system was very inflexible. It was hard to get talent to work on it. It was over 30 years old, and our customers were demanding more and more digital experiences and different kinds of products, requiring us to move much faster than we were capable to move.”
Regarding optionality, Jenniskens commented that rejuvenation was a core part of their business both for products and in their customer base. She added that there is a large money transfer happening between the baby boomer generation and their kids, meaning there is a new generation of customers with differing perspectives, looking for more personalised options, more digital journeys and products easily accessible on their phones.
She said: “We realised that we are on a big digital transformation journey that is really needed for us. And we cannot do everything at once. So therefore I think for us, the optionality is very key and that’s where Temenos really helped us.”
Chatard described the regulatory benefits of using one platform: “There's more and more compliance around cyber information security and having one platform allows you to continuously upgrade not only Temenos, but all the bits and pieces which are below the database on your operating system. So you don't build legacy and in terms of being up to date with vulnerabilities, and stuff like that, it's extremely important as well.”
Prema Varadhan, president of product & COO, Temenos took to the stage to detail the company’s latest product innovations.
Varadhan touched on Temenos Enterprise Service, generative AI, developments in asset finance, changes in their digital wealth app, and carbon efficiencies in software, before being joined on stage by Spyros Loizou, group head international IT, Eurobank (Cyprus).
Regarding their banking transformation, Loizou said the ‘why’ of updating their system was obvious, but the how was the difficult questions. He said: “We wanted to really focus on a partner that was going to give us scalability, flexibility, and a good product range to eliminate complexity of integration.”
Loizou added: “We're proud to say that we have done a front to back, back to front transformation. So we have the breeding ground to fostering new innovation, that's for sure.”
Varadhan was then joined by Arturo Grullon, CEO, QIK, to discuss their decision to go with SaaS over cloud or on premises.
Grullon noted that they needed to have a solution which was flexible and had a quick time to market, but was also scalable and reliable. He said: “Where Temenos fully shined, was that it offered us the innovation in product, but also offered us the possibility to reliably scale the business.”
AI infused platform and SaaS
Following a coffee break Varadhan began a discussion on Temenos’s release of its generative AI product, Responsible AI.
Varadhan emphasised the importance of responsible AI, pointing out the current EU AI Act by stating: “What it is doing is enforcing the safe, transparent, unbiased and environment friendly way of using AI.”
She added: “Unless the model is explained, it's not possible for someone to look into it and think that this is what it thought and this is why it did this.”
Tony Coleman, chief technology and innovation officer, Temenos, closed the first half of the day by discussing the latest developments in the Temenos Banking Platform, and introducing the audience to Temenos Positions.
Coleman described increased efficiencies across engineering, including Project Rapid, which he said “can now produce a specific executable. That shortcuts a lot of the application framework stack to make these deployables lighter and faster.”
Regarding Temenos Positions, Coleman emphasised that it can be used over existing architecture and it is light weight because data is externalised.