Microsoft and Temenos Partner on Core Banking

Temenos Group AG (Geneva) and Microsoft (Redmond, Wash.) have announced an alliance to deliver the Temenos T24 core banking system on Microsoft's SQL Server, according to a press release.

Commenting on the agreement in the press release, TowerGroup senior research director Robert Hunt said that Microsoft's operating platform software and the .NET architecture can provide functionality and scalability comparable to that with mainframe and UNIX-based platforms. "Leading global core vendors now offer Windows-based versions of their core processing systems. These offerings should lead more large banks to choose a Windows platform when they implement a new core system," Hunt stated.

Under the agreement, Microsoft and Temenos will collaborate more closely and fully optimize the use of the Microsoft SQL Server platform with T24. The companies say that the new agreement will serve to offer large-scale banks increased operational efficiencies by increasing the speed and effectiveness in the product and services development process.

"Our alliance with Temenos provides our largest financial services customers a cost-effective platform on which they can build future-generation processing capabilities that meet the evolving demands of their business," Susan Hauser, vice president, worldwide financial services, Microsoft, said in the release.

Temenos CEO Andreas Andreades added that his company has seen a growing interest from our customers and prospects in deploying the Microsoft platform for their core banking operations.

"The recently announced T24 signing of Bank SinoPac in Taiwan, a regional bank with 4 million customers that will run the system on the Microsoft platform, illustrates this trend and provides further evidence that large retail banking operations seek to benefit from the capabilities offered by SQL Server," Andreades stated in the release. "We are delighted to be increasing our collaboration with Microsoft and that we are able to offer all our customers — regardless of size — the benefits associated with this choice of platform."