ABA & Temenos held a webinar on Moving Banking to SaaS on 29 May 2025.

The 60-minute session featured Zannettos Zannettou, Business Solution Manager, who discussed how SaaS can reduce a bank’s operational frictions. Connie Leung, Senior Director, Regional Industry Leader - Asia at Microsoft joined Mr. Zannettos during the fire chat section of the webinar to further elaborate on the applicability of the solution, while Mr. Rajan S. Narayan, Cyberbeat CEO moderated the session. We would like to present you the summary of the session as follows: SUMMARY (1) Opening Remarks by Rajan Najaran Mr. Najaran opened the session by highlighting the growing shift of banks of all sizes to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms like Temenos Banking Cloud. He emphasized the benefits of SaaS in delivering greater speed to market and agility. (2) Main Presentation by Zannettos Zannettou Mr. Zannettou began his presentation by outlining the Temenos SaaS Cloud Service, built around three main pillars: default deployment on Microsoft Azure’s public cloud, rich and extensible banking functionality developed over three decades, and a fully managed IT operations model. This includes proactive monitoring, automatic updates to keep systems evergreen, and services backed by strong SLAs. The platform supports both small and large banks with the same core technology stack and is already in production across over 30 regulatory jurisdictions globally. To illustrate real-world impact, Mr. Zannettos shared two customer success stories. Alex Bank in Australia leveraged Temenos SaaS for corporate banking, achieving improved customer retention and operational agility. A digital lender in Malaysia rapidly launched its platform using Temenos SaaS during the pandemic, benefiting from low costs, high scalability, and fast time-to-market. He concluded by emphasizing the platform’s built-in ESG capabilities, including carbon footprint optimization, and reaffirmed Temenos’ commitment to secure, sustainable, and regulated SaaS delivery across global markets. Key Takeaways • Temenos SaaS significantly reduces banks' operational burden by offering a fully managed, evergreen, secure cloud platform deployed on Microsoft Azure. • Regulatory compliance is streamlined through standardized processes, certifications, and a centralized Trust Center that provides up-to-date documentation for regulators. • Banks benefit from scalability, faster time-to-market, and ESG alignment, enabling innovation without compromising on security or performance. (2) Fireside chat Discussion During the fireside chat moderated by Mr. Narayan, Mr. Zannettou and Ms Leung explored how SaaS and cloud services are transforming the banking sector amid intensifying market pressures and regulatory expectations. Ms. Leung began by outlining the pressing challenges facing banks today, including macroeconomic volatility, growing cybersecurity threats, rapid digitization, and increasing regulatory demands. She emphasized that cloud technology—particularly when combined with data analytics and generative AI—has become a key enabler for banks to reduce costs, scale operations, and personalize customer experiences. Microsoft’s Azure platform, in collaboration with partners like Temenos, offers not just infrastructure but a compliant, secure, and adaptable foundation to modernize banking operations. She underscored that financial services are now among the leading adopters of generative AI, with practical use cases such as virtual assistants, fraud detection, and productivity tools driving rapid returns on investment. The discussion wrapped up with audience questions on implementation timelines, SaaS cost models, and data governance, all of which reaffirmed the growing maturity and readiness of SaaS offerings for banks of all sizes. Key Takeaways: • Start regulatory engagement early to streamline approvals and build confidence. • Focus on change management to align technology adoption with cultural and process transformation. • Leverage AI and cloud to reduce cost, enhance agility, and improve customer and employee experiences. The complete summary can be read at www.aba.org.tw