Temenos acquires Kony and strengthens its leadership team

Temenos, the Switzerland-based banking software company, has agreed to acquire Kony, Inc., the digital banking SaaS company, for $559 million and an earn-out of $21 million, subject to regulatory approvals.  
 
The acquisition enhances Temenos’ scale and capabilities in the US, adds significant digital expertise, and accelerates Temenos Infinity, the breakthrough digital front office product, which has over 500 banking clients. Thomas E. Hogan, Chairman, and CEO of Kony, will become President of Temenos North America and join Temenos’ Executive Committee, effective on the acquisition closing date.

What the Temenos / Kony acquisition means

• The acquisition accelerates Temenos’ growth in the US bringing substantial scale, digital expertise, and increased market presence.
   
• Temenos is best placed to capture the growing digital front office banking software addressable market which is USD 9 billion in the US and USD 23 billion worldwide.
   
• Kony’s award-winning digital banking experience product will strengthen Temenos Infinity, as the richest and most technologically advanced digital banking product with unmatched digital expertise.
   
• Temenos Infinity is available natively on any cloud, as a SaaS offering or on-premise and can be connected to any core software.
   
• All Kony customers to benefit from continuous investment and innovation.
   
• Temenos strengthens its Executive Committee with the appointment of Thomas E. Hogan, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, Kony, a seasoned US leader to become the President of Temenos North America.

Temenos, the banking software company, announced that it has agreed to acquire Kony Inc, the digital banking SaaS company. The acquisition significantly enhances Temenos’ scale and capabilities in the US, adds significant digital expertise and accelerates Temenos Infinity, the breakthrough digital front office product, which has over 500 banking clients and is recognized as a leader by top analyst houses such as Forrester, Gartner, Ovum, and IDC. Thomas E. Hogan, Chairman, and CEO of Kony will become President of Temenos North America and join Temenos’ Executive Committee, effective on the acquisition closing date. Temenos has agreed to purchase Kony for an enterprise value of USD 559 million and an earn-out of USD 21 million, subject to regulatory approvals.

Kony has achieved rapid growth with both top tier and mid-market banks in the US and internationally with its Kony Digital Banking Experience product (Kony DBX) which is recognized as a leader by top analyst firms such as Gartner, Forrester, and IDC. With 1,500 employees and deep expertise in digital and cloud technologies, Kony has been helping banks transform the experience for their clients with digital banking applications and its market-leading development platform, all of which are served through a cloud-hosted SaaS model.

The Kony DBX product includes a suite of mobile banking apps delivering exceptional omnichannel experiences including support for conversational interfaces, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and wearable technologies. Key to this success is Kony’s development platform that accelerates product cycles and increases agility by reducing the load on bank IT to design and iterate user experiences. Kony’s banking clients have been able to transform the banking experience with some achieving over 20% increase in mobile deposits, a 64% increase in mobile credit card payments and significantly reducing the abandonment rate from 20% to 3%.

The combined strength of Temenos, Kony and the recently acquired Avoka, will further strengthen the Temenos Infinity product, covering all banking verticals offering customer acquisition and onboarding, omnichannel banking, customer retention, and marketing, and modules supporting payments, wealth advisor, financial crime, risk and compliance, and analytics.

Temenos Infinity can be delivered on-premise, in any cloud or as a SaaS offering and has 700 published APIs for third-party integration. Temenos Infinity, can be easily implemented on any core banking system or integrated with the market-leading Temenos T24 Transact core banking product giving banks the freedom to continuously renovate their banking platform starting first with the customer experience.

“The acquisition of Kony, the US #1 digital banking SaaS company is highly strategic and will allow us to grow both our US and our digital front office business faster while being highly accretive and synergistic to the rest of our business. We are acquiring a digital front office product that has already been successful in the US market and is connected to most third-party cores. We are also adding a significant amount of exciting functionality and ease of generating customer journeys and experiences that will accelerate Temenos Infinity, providing banks in both North America and internationally with the unrivaled customer experience and omnichannel banking products. I am also extremely excited to welcome Tom Hogan to join our Executive Committee as the President of Temenos North America. Tom is an inspirational and seasoned leader with rich experience in executive positions in the technology sector and will be instrumental in driving our success in North America. I am also delighted to welcome to Temenos an impressive team of over 1500 people from Kony with immense digital and cloud expertise. These are truly exciting times as we continue to offer banks the most technologically advanced digital banking platform giving them the freedom to innovate and the speed to deliver superior digital customer experiences,” said Max Chuard, Chief Executive Officer, Temenos.

“I could not be more excited about joining Temenos and the combined value we will bring to financial institutions around the world. The power of the Temenos portfolio, combined with Kony’s digital banking applications and multi-experience development platform, will bring the industry’s most robust suite of applications for delivering service, value, and efficiencies from the digital edge to the modern core. The strength, scale, and commitment of Temenos will also help protect and extend our market-leading innovation. On behalf of the 1,500 talented Kony employees, we are proud and excited to join forces with Max Chuard and the equally talented men and women at Temenos and I am personally very proud to become the President of Temenos North America,” said Thomas E. Hogan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Kony, Inc.

Temenos strengthens its Executive Committee and North America Leadership team 

• Thomas E. Hogan, Chairman, and CEO, Kony, to join Temenos Executive Committee as newly appointed President of Temenos North America.
   
• Emily Steele is appointed Executive Vice President, North America Field Operations and Delivery.
   
• Jeffery Kendall is appointed Executive Vice President, North America Sales, and Distribution.

Temenos announced it is strengthening its Executive Committee and North America leadership team, following its previously announced acquisition of Kony, Inc.

Thomas E. Hogan, Chairman, and CEO of Kony will be appointed as the President of Temenos North America and a member of the Temenos Executive Committee. This appointment will become effective upon the completion of the Kony acquisition, expected by early Q4 2019.

Tom will drive Temenos’ sales growth in North America, with responsibility for the region’s P&L, reporting directly to Max Chuard, Chief Executive Officer of Temenos.

Tom is a highly regarded US leader with extensive experience in executive positions in the software and technology sector. He has served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kony since 2014, leading the company’s fast expansion and growth. Prior to Kony, he held leadership roles in Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Siebel and was the Chief Executive Officer of publicly held Vignette from 2001 to 2006. Tom currently serves as a director on the Citrix board as well as a board advisor to the Cognitive Scale.

Temenos will also strengthen the North America Leadership team with the following key appointments both reporting to Tom:

• Emily Steele – Executive Vice President, Field Operations and Delivery for Temenos North America. A senior leader with over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry. Emily joined Temenos in 2015 by way of the company’s acquisition of Akcelerant and has held a number of key roles. She will continue to be instrumental in Temenos’ business success and will oversee the North America day-to-day operations.
• Jeffery Kendall – Executive Vice President, North America Sales, and Distribution. Jeffery was previously Executive Vice President and General Manager of Banking at Kony. An experienced leader in enterprise-scale digital transformation with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. Jeffery will be responsible for driving sales in North America and for partnering with the rest of Temenos to ensure the global success of Temenos Infinity, the market-leading digital front office product.

“With the acquisition of Kony, we are not only acquiring a great digital front office product but also an impressive team of over 1,500 experts in digital and cloud. I am extremely pleased to welcome Tom Hogan to our Executive Committee as the President of Temenos North America. Tom is an inspirational leader with rich experience in the technology sector and I am convinced we will continue to accelerate our success in the US and Canada. I am also excited by the strength of the new North America leadership team with the key appointments of Emily and Jeffery. These are truly exciting times and I am confident that Tom, Emily, and Jeffery will continue to successfully deliver on our North American strategic plan as we enter our next phase of growth,” said Max Chuard, Chief Executive Officer, Temenos.

“I am thrilled to join Max Chuard and the Temenos leadership team. They have done a remarkable job building the acknowledged global leader in banking software. I am also extremely pleased to partner on this new journey with Emily and Jeffery. Both have an established track record of exceptional leadership, client centricity, and domain expertise. We share an ambitious vision of growth across North America and embrace the challenge,” said Thomas E. Hogan, Chairman, and CEO, Kony, Inc.