KARACHI - Meezan Bank Limited, Pakistan’s largest Islamic bank, has opted to introduce modular core banking Temenos T24 (T24) solution system in bid to offer centralised core banking services across its branch network, it was learnt on Wednesday. 
Temenos Group (SWX: TEMN), the Switzerland-based integrated core banking systems provider’s “T24 Model Bank” would start functioning soon, which incorporates pre-configured working and processes for banking best practice to reduce the implementation time and costs, minimise customisation and lower the project risk. This will also include the T24 Pakistan Country Platform, with specific functionality to meet local banking requirements and regulations.
It is reported that T24, the company’s modular core banking system, is expected to deliver full Islamic banking capabilities and enable Meezan Bank to reduce the time to market for new products, consolidate funds and trade finance banking operations, and simplify reporting and controls with a single centralised database.
Meezan Bank’s management said that the Bank needed to update its core banking system to support planned future growth and to maintain its position as Pakistan’s leading Islamic bank. We have already achieved successful results with T24’s treasury module and the level of local support available for the product was one of the factors that tilted Bank’s final decision to implement the complete T24 solution. 
Meezan Bank originally deployed the T24 treasury module in November 2005. 
Subsequently, the bank realised that it needed to replace the locally-developed Islamic Banker system which it had been using since 1996. After a year-long selection process, during which time it considered a number of leading local and international solutions, Meezan Bank signed the deal with Temenos in March 2007. T24 is a functionally rich, thin client, scalable, integrated, modular banking system. It is built on open system principles and uses established technology standards such as HTTP, XML and HTML. 
It offers a single client view across the enterprise and can support large numbers of users with true non-stop resilience. Its fully-integrated architecture enables it to offer a significant cost advantage compared to other competing products. It offers multiple application server support and is the only system available with no end-of-day batch processing and so can genuinely boast of providing real-time 24/7 non-stop banking.
Meanwhile, Meezan Bank has started 8 am to 8 pm banking in Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad.
An announcement to this effect was made in a statement issued here on Wednesday.
It said the President and CEO Meezan Bank, Irfan Siddiqui, has said that this new and exclusive banking service will allow customers extended banking hours from 8 O’clock in the morning to 8 O’ clock at night now in Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad’s selected branches initially.