Temenos Group: Temenos makes senior appointments to drive its product and marketing strategy

Geneva, Switzerland, Dec 03, 2008 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- TMNSF | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Temenos (SWX: TEMN), the provider of integrated core banking systems, today announced the appointment of Koen Van den Brande as Group Strategy and Marketing Director. Van den Brande will be responsible for driving Temenos' product and marketing strategy worldwide. He will report to Mark Cullinane, Temenos' Chief Operating Officer, and will be based out of the company's London office.

Former Temenos Group Strategy Director Mark Gunning has been appointed to Group Retail Banking Director. Within his new role, Gunning will be responsible for driving the development and execution of Temenos' global retail banking strategy and building the company's presence in this sector.

These newly created roles come in response to Temenos' continued organic growth, and follow the addition of other senior roles this year. In 2008, Temenos has also appointed Mike Head as Global Partners Director and Gareth Jones as Retail Business Development Director.

Koen Van den Brande has 25 years experience working in the financial technology sector. He joins Temenos from Microsoft, where he was Worldwide Industry Manager for Core Banking, responsible for leading Microsoft's global core banking initiatives and establishing a partner-led go-to-market strategy. Van den Brande was also the CTO of the Microsoft Financial Services division for EMEA.

During his time at Microsoft, Van den Brande worked with Temenos and other leading suppliers to launch BIAN - the Banking Industry Architecture Network - together with major banks Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and ING. The association was established to assist banks moving to a next generation SOA-based core banking platform by creating a community to exchange expertise in SOA principles and methodologies and focused on compiling standard semantic definitions of banking enterprise services.

Prior to Microsoft, Van den Brande was President and CTO at Polaris Software Labs, based in Chennai, India where he was responsible for the global roll-out of an SOA-based product/services transformation strategy across the entire 6,000-strong business. Before that, he held a number of senior management roles in financial software companies, including at Misys and Midas-Kapiti. During his time at Misys, Van den Brande was responsible for leading the successful re-positioning of its Equation product towards retail banking.

Commenting on his new role, Van den Brande says: "It is evident that Temenos has continued to secure a large share of the global core banking market and its R&D model is the strongest in the industry. Temenos, through its focus on a single product version, based on a flexible and modern architecture, is able to frequently invest a higher proportion of its revenue into R&D than all its competitors and this secures its market leadership in core banking technology. I have observed how the Temenos brand has developed significantly and look forward to leveraging the company's strong position further for continued growth."

Andreas Andreades, CEO, Temenos adds: "Koen's arrival is confirmation of Temenos' continued ability to attract the best talent in the industry. I look forward to working with Koen and am fully confident that he will be instrumental in ensuring that TEMENOS not only remains the global leader in core banking software but that this leadership is further extended. In addition, Mark Gunning's new role reinforces our aggressive growth plans for the retail banking sector and demonstrates our commitment to assisting this market during these uncertain times, in providing highly scalable, flexible software to maintain and improve performance at a reduced cost of ownership."

In the 12 months to 30 September 2008, its most recent reporting date, Temenos achieved USD168.5 million in license revenue and USD410.0 million in total revenue, representing increases of 35% and 45% on the previous 12 months, respectively. Temenos continues to enjoy strong growth across all regions thanks to superior products and services and a compelling investment and product roadmap, the outcome of its high R&D investment, which at around 20% of revenues each year is significantly higher than its peers'.

The Temenos T24 Model Bank is packaged core banking software that provides banks with unparalleled richness in functionality on an integrated, SOA with support from front to back office. T24 Model Bank includes pre-configured, industry best practices for each banking sector, enabling banks to optimise operations and processes while remaining agile, flexible and responsive to business change. Its highly automated implementation approach delivers rapid deployment with a fast and measurable return on investment. Fully integrated CRM and business intelligence capabilities provide a high degree of customer intimacy, and a clear and deep understanding of the enterprise, including its risk and performance. Its scalability, as underlined by recently reported Temenos/IBM performance tests, means T24 is capable of servicing banks ranging from small to up to 25 million accounts.

In addition to its comprehensive SOA architecture, T24 incorporates modern technology and is fully enabled for standard SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) web services, and BPEL process execution. T24 is compliant with industry leading ESBs (Enterprise Service Buses) and can be deployed on fully scalable, multi-server n-tier architecture. It provides a full front-to-back solution from electronic delivery channels such as mobile devices and internet banking right through to settlement, general ledger and other back office functions. This is delivered in a fully integrated, reliable and cost effective environment. Temenos' total commitment to open standards enables its customers to benefit from the latest advances in technology ensuring business agility, continuity, data integrity and reduced downtime delivering a significant, immediate and ongoing return on investment.

About Temenos

Founded in 1993 and listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange (SWX: TEMN), Temenos Group AG is a global provider of banking software systems in the Retail, Corporate & Correspondent, Universal, Private, Islamic and Microfinance & Community banking markets. Headquartered in Geneva with 44 offices worldwide, Temenos serves over 650 customers in more than 120 countries. Temenos' software products provide advanced technology and rich functionality, incorporating best practice processes that leverage Temenos' experience in over 600 implementations around the globe. Temenos' advanced and automated implementation approach, provided by its strong Client Services organisation, ensures efficient and low-risk core banking platform migrations. Temenos annually invests around 20% in R&D, significantly more than its peers, into a single fully packaged upgradeable software release, which ensures all Temenos customers benefit from modern technology and support indefinitely. Temenos is top of the IBS Sales League Table 2008, winner of the Best Core Banking Product category in Banking Technology magazine's Readers' Choice Awards 2008, winner of the Financial-i Leaders in Innovation award for the most innovative core banking systems solution 2008 and is listed in the American Banker top 100 FinTech companies.

For more information please visit www.temenos.com

CONTACT: Evelina Amanatidou / Cat Lenheim, Team 660 Metia for Temenos Tel: +44 (0)20 3100 3592 Tel: +44 (0)20 3100 3767 e-mail: evelina@metia.com e-mail: Catherine.lenheim@metia.com

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