National Bank of Iraq (NBI), part of the Capital Bank Group, has successfully gone live with Temenos core banking and payments.
NBI, which has 27 branches across Iraq, offers a comprehensive range of services to individuals and businesses in the country. Since 2005, it has been majority owned by Capital Bank, one of the top financial institutions operating in the Jordanian and regional markets, with assets of approximately JOD 7.6 billion.
With this implementation, NBI is moving from its legacy systems onto the same core banking platform as other entities in the Capital Bank Group. This will enable NBI to operate more efficiently and integrate seamlessly with other systems to develop new products faster and deliver an improved customer experience.
Capital Bank Group is a long-standing Temenos customer with other entities in the Group including Capital Bank of Jordan, Bank Audi, Société Générale Bank Jordan and NBI Saudi Arabia, already on the Temenos platform.
NBI also becomes the first part of the group to adopt Temenos Payments, which enabled the bank to process more than 100,000 transactions of incoming and outgoing domestic and international payments in the first 15 days of operation.
The migration to the Temenos platform for core banking and payments at NBI was completed in under 12 months due to Temenos’ pre-configured banking and payments capabilities and APIs which reduced the need for complex customizations, as well as close collaboration between Temenos, NBI, Capital Bank and delivery partner ITSS.
The implementation at NBI follows several other transformation projects with Temenos for Capital Bank in the last few years, including the launch of NBI’s branch operations in Saudi Arabia in just 45 days, as well as the integration of Bank Audi and the former Jordanian operations of Société Générale, each of which was achieved in under four months. Collectively, these projects helped Capital Bank to increase operational efficiency by more than 50% within three years, bringing significant cost savings.
Izzidin Abusalameh, Chief Operations Officer, Capital Bank Group, said: “This achievement marks a significant milestone in our digital transformation journey and positions us as a leading player in the banking industry. We have seamlessly transitioned the National Bank of Iraq to a cutting-edge core banking system which will not only enhance operational efficiency but also support providing our customers with a superior digital banking experience.”
Lee Allcorn, Managing Director, Middle East & Africa, Temenos, said: “Congratulations to National Bank of Iraq and the Capital Bank team on this successful implementation that gives NBI business agility and the same modern technology platform and ability to deploy fast with pre-configured banking capabilities as the rest of the group.”
