Background

Temenos is the world’s #1 banking software provider, working with visionary banks to reinvent and shape the future of the financial industry. With 7,500 employees working with over 3,000 firms across the globe, including 41 of the world’s top 50 banks, Temenos processes the client interactions and daily transactions of more than 1.2 billion banking customers, 30% of the world’s banking population.

Covid-19 has created an even greater need for banks to digitally transform. Whilst primarily a health crisis, the pandemic has also caused a global economic crisis. Banks are being called upon to help society recover, either by providing their customers with digital banking solutions or by helping governments to roll out financial rescue packages. Temenos’ mission has been to help banks rise to this challenge through market-leading software, believing that organizations who embrace digital technology gain the agility and resilience to deliver under pressure. Temenosians themselves have had to ‘walk this talk’ in the crisis to remain credible.

Approach

‘Temenosity’ describes the culture of the company, embracing five cultural principles: tenacity, velocity, authenticity, responsibility and community. The company is intentional about these values in order to help all colleagues to work better and smarter, both internally as well as with clients. When the crisis first hit, the priority was to ensure the safety and wellbeing of Temenosians and the continuity of the business, so Temenos followed the restrictions put in place by the 40+ countries in which they operate. Within a matter of days, 98% of teams were working from home, with access to a suite of remote working tools.

The product and marketing teams quickly created and delivered a new, highly interactive online event for the Temenos Community. New Covid-19 propositions were designed and showcased at the online event to help banks in their immediate response to the pandemic as well as to support the acceleration of digital transformation for the future. These included helping banks to rapidly offer loans to small businesses, or to mitigate the increased risk of cybercrime. Banks’ employees were also given free access to Temenos’ online learning platform, comprising over 400 online courses.

Communication was also a key focus, to maintain connectedness amongst employees and clients, with the CEO taking a very active role in this. Practical communications were upweighted to guide employees through uncertainty, and broad messages were shared with the banking community to highlight Temenos’ commitment to support them and to explain the dedicated Covid-19 propositions.

Outcome

The culture of Temenosity has been the driving force behind the company’s ability to weather the storm of Covid-19. Results continue to demonstrate Temenosians’ commitment and their ability to deliver banking solutions with real and lasting impact. Early feedback on working remotely was highly positive with 82% of respondents saying their ability to perform was slightly or not impacted at all, citing positive aspects such as no daily commute, and more flexibility. 97% of employees said they felt informed about Temenos’s approach to Covid-19.

From a client perspective, Temenos has implemented projects 100% remotely. In the first three months of 2020, project ‘go lives’ increased by 75%. Working with Atlantic Union Bank (AUB), Temenos helped to build a brand new digital loan portal to process PPP applications in just four days. This enabled the bank to approve 6,500 applications – totalling $1.4bn small business funds – in just 13 days. As one leader commented: “I’ve worked in this business for over 20 years, and personally can’t remember ever working with a vendor with such success… I’m equally proud of the fact that this effort was to support our small businesses and their employees get the funding to save their businesses and livelihoods.”

Over 4,500 people, including 1,400 Temenosians, attended TCF Online in April, more than double the number usually reached with previous in-person events. There were also 4,755 registrations, from over 600 banks, for the TLC Online learning platform. Despite the disruptions of the pandemic a seamless continuity of service has been achieved with many examples of employees going over and above to serve their communities. This is thanks to the culture of Temenosity which has united Temenosians with a sense of purpose, dedication and togetherness. The company is now undertaking a project to assess the ‘future of work’ at Temenos to incorporate takeaways from the crisis into the ongoing employee experience.

Find out more: Read Temenos’s blog “Passing the Culture Test in 2020”