Malta’s newest challenger bank Laskaris Finance, which aims to serve high-net-worth individuals and corporate clients, has chosen Temenos to be its cloud core banking provider, reports Ruby Hinchliffe of Fintech Futures, Finovate’s sister publication.

Laskaris is currently applying for a banking license from the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) and the European Central Bank (ECB), which will allow it to work as a credit institution in and from Malta.

Temenos says its T24 Transact core cloud product will enable the Maltese challenger to launch in the “shortest” time frames, keep to regulatory standards, and screen transactions to tackle financial crime with Temenos’ Financial Crime Mitigation (FCM).

“Laskaris accepts the responsibility of challenging the status quo in banking – naturally within the parameters set by the local and EU regulators – simply because clients deserve to be provided with a superior array of banking services,” said Laskaris founder and CEO Roderick Psaila.

The neobank wants to be a ‘one-stop-shop’ for high-earning individuals and corporate businesses by fusing personal and commercial banking needs together.

Malta, despite being just over 78,000 acres, was ranked in the top 20 financial service jurisdictions by the World Economic Forum’s 2017 to 2018 Global Competitiveness report.

Temenos’ Europe MD Steen Jensen said he’s “excited to see the growing list of challenger banks in Europe.” Laskaris is the tenth client for Temenos in Malta, with other customers including e-commerce payments solution Truevo and smart acquiring solution Credorax. Jensen called this “a testimony to our local expertise and growing footprint on the island.”

Founded in 1993, Temenos debuted its Connect Mobile Banking application at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. With 3,000+ bank clients in 150 countries, Temenos reaches more than 500 million end customers. In August, Temenos acquired Kony for $559 million. The company has a market capitalization of $11.8 billion.