Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) has announced the deployment of the Temenos award winning Islamic banking solution IslamicSuite as its core banking system. QIB seamlessly migrated from a number of fragmented systems to a single fully-integrated Temenos platform.
The transformation programme, which was concluded on schedule in a record timeframe of two years, included the replacement of QIB’s core banking system, covering all business lines, as well as the introduction of new peripheral systems and upgrades of existing ones in areas such as Treasury Operations, Enterprise Content Management, and Collections.
Furthermore, the majority of the QIB’s core infrastructure needed a refresh to mitigate the risks associated with obsolete and out of support technologies. The transformation programme involved a huge number of activities to revamp QIB’s infrastructure landscape, which included the replacement and upgrade of hardware, networks, security and communication upgrades, as well as a brand new middleware to connect the new core banking system with  all QIB’s channels and peripheral applications.
The cutting-edge system has allowed QIB to adopt international best practices and has been customised to match QIB’s Shariah-compliant processes and procedures as well as Qatar’s Central Bank regulatory requirements.  
QIB’s board of directors recognises that investment in technology is a critical component for upgrading the bank’s services and improving its operations. The system deployment is expected to increase automation, mitigate risk, put in place better controls, improve speed of service, improve productivity and reduce overall cost.
Krishna Kumar, chief operating officer at QIB, said: “The newly-implemented Temenos core banking system will allow us to improve our operations in a number of ways. We are already witnessing many efficiency gains, beneficial both to our customers and the bank. Many manual procedures have been automated, giving us more time to personally serve our customers.
“We will also have better control over our internal procedures, along with access to a more robust regulatory reporting system. Together, these will help mitigate risk and increase efficiency. While the successful introduction of the new core banking system is an important milestone in QIB’s history, it is not itself the final destination.  QIB customers can look forward to continued innovation to make their banking experience with the bank even better.”
Jean-Paul Mergeai, head of Middle East & Africa at Temenos, said: “We are delighted by the successful implementation of our core banking solution at Qatar Islamic Bank. The successful core banking transformation story that we share with QIB comes as a result of strong collaboration between QIB, Temenos and its partners. Built on the foundation of sound governance from day one, together, we have operated in an open and transparent relationship, with both sets of senior management highly committed to the programme objectives. QIB’s success has set new benchmarks in Islamic banking in the region and we are happy to be a part of it.”