The Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited (CBG) has gone live with Temenos T24 Transact, the next generation in core banking, to power its operations for retail and corporate banking.
Temenos’ cloud-native, cloud-agnostic platform will empower CBG to rapidly and cost-effectively deliver innovative digital banking services and exceptional customer experience.
CBG formed in August 2018 from the selected assets and liabilities of five insolvent Ghanaian banks: Sovereign, BEIGE, Royal, Construction, uniBank with the subsequent inclusion of Heritage and Premium Bank. Each erstwhile bank operated independently on the Temenos core banking software.
CBG therefore selected Temenos to seamlessly migrate the disparate systems onto a single comprehensive platform. The migration means CBG can consistently deliver excellent customer experiences and transformative digital banking services to any customer, regardless of their location.
Temenos’ state-of-the-art core banking platform will provide CBG with unparalleled operational efficiency while drastically lowering its cost-income ratio. Temenos’ unique architecture will deliver the agile scalability needed for CBG to realize its growth aspirations and support financial inclusion in Ghana.
These unique capabilities will also be fundamental in supporting CBG’s core business objectives, which include deposit mobilization, strategic asset growth, non-funded income, and cost containment.
The formation of CBG is as a result of the regulator-driven consolidation sweeping the Ghanaian banking market. In September 2017, the central bank issued a directive that raised the minimum capital requirements for all universal banks in Ghana from 120m Cedis (US $22.8 million) to 400m Cedis (US $73.4 million).
As a result, the number of banks in Ghana has fallen from more than 34 to 23. This banking sector cleanup has seen larger banks, like CBG, emerge with the capacity and resource to truly transform the landscape and improve efforts to foster financial inclusion. CBG is the Ghana’s second largest bank, with 114 branches, 119 ATMs and around 1 million customers.
Daniel Addo, Chief Executive Officer, CBG, said: “Temenos’ rich banking functionality and advanced cloud and API first technology made it the perfect partner for this ambitious and exciting consolidation project.
“Already a trusted partner to each of the seven erstwhile banks, Temenos has the blueprint for advanced cloud-native, cloud-agnostic core architecture that will allow us to deliver digital banking services and promote financial inclusion, both now and in the future.
“Together with Temenos we can deliver on our vision to become the bank of choice in Ghana, providing a simple, secure and differentiated banking experience to our customers.”
Jean-Paul Mergeai, Managing Director – Middle East and Africa, Temenos, said: “We are delighted to partner with Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited during this exciting time of integration and transformation in banking.
“Temenos has a wealth of expertise bringing together and streamlining the operations of multiple banks in a way that drives operational efficiency and significant cost savings.
“In Temenos T24 Transact, CBG has a future-proof platform from which it can drive business growth, accelerate product innovation and better respond to market changes to meet customer needs. Ghana is a key growth market for Temenos and we are dedicated to see the positive outworking of this key relationship with CBG as we move towards digital transformation and financial inclusion.”