Temenos Buys Kony To Accelerate Digital Banking Growth

Banking software company Temenos has acquired Kony, a digital banking software-as-solution (SaaS) company, according to reports. 

Temenos will pay $559 million and Kony will get an earn-out of $21 million, which will be paid for with debt and cash. The deal is still subject to all regulatory approvals and expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of the year. 

There will be personnel changes as well. The chairman and CEO of Kony, Thomas Hogan, will move into a new position as the president of Temenos North America. He’ll also become a part of the company’s executive committee, which will happen when the acquisition is completed.

Kony has been successful in the digital banking sector, and it grew fast. It has a product that’s a digital banking experience called Kony DBX. The company has 1,500 employees and it helps banks with digital applications and online platforms, which it does through a cloud-hosted SaaS format. 

 “We are acquiring a digital front office product that has already been successful in the U.S. market and is connected to most third party cores,” said Max Chuard, CEO of Temenos.

At the end of last year, Temenos struck a deal to acquire banking services and onboarding firm Avoka, in one of the largest exits for an Australian FinTech.

Temenos acquired Australia-based Avoka for $245 million, reports said, following Temenos’ acquisition of Australia’s Rubik Financial. Temenos said at the time that it would have 280 staff in Australia once the acquisition of Avoka was completed.

Temenos has targeted Australia as it prepared to introduce its own open banking initiative, similar to efforts introduced in the U.K. and Europe. Avoka enabled Temenos to add “customer portability” to its offering for banks as it provide support to migrate to the open banking regime, reports said.

In an interview at the time, Temenos Regional Managing Director Martin Frick said Avoka’s customer onboarding solution “frankly puts our own front-office onboarding solution to shame.”