‘Why Finacle deployment is successful in Nigeria’

The Vice President (VP) and Global Head, Client Services for Finacle at Infosys Technologies, Mr. Santa Rao, has adduced some reasons why Finacle banking solution has been successfully deployed in Nigeria.

He made this disclosure at a press conference to herald a jointly organised Computer Warehouse Group (CWG)-Infosys Summit on Tomorrow’s Banking Today: A Multichannel Paradigm in Lagos.

Mr. Rao who was accompanied at the press session by the Group Managing Director, CWG, Mr. Austin Group, attributed the outcome to a successful partnership with Computer Warehouse Group (CWG).

He therefore commended the management of CWG for its steadfastness in driving deployment of Finacle solution in Africa and Nigerian market particularly.

He reiterated that Infosys is working hard to ensure that it plays at the forefront of this mobile banking solution technology.

He buttressed his point by saying that after China and India follows Facebook as literally are the largest populated three ‘nations’ globally.

What this tells us, he pointed out, is that the way things are done is changing, hence, the cost of taking banking services is drastically reducing, therefore within some little time and competition continue to evolve this cost would continue to come down.

He expressed optimized that in Nigeria Infosys has seen that banking and financial institutions will continue to have a change for good by adapting to these technologies.

Also speaking, the Group Managing Director, CWG, Mr. Austin Okere, said they were excited to have chosen to partner with Infosys, adding that this step changed the future of Computer Warehouse Group and Nigerian banking sector.

“… Our vision changed when we met with Infosys. We have gone from banking solution and unto Finacle deployment,” he said.

In Nigeria, he said, Finacle has been deployed in nine banks and five non-banking institutions out of the 22 banks currently listed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

“We have 9 banks and 5 non-banking institutions and this figure, 9 out of the 22 banks is not a bad business knowing that we are not the only one in the marketing,” Okere assured.

He explained that Computer Warehouse Group deploys Finacle with its customers rather than for them, this step, Okere said, is to ensure that they continued to give good services to the customers and giving them value for their money.

According to him, CWG trains about 20 employees of any institution deploying Finacle for 45 days at Infosys campus in India, to make way for cross-bred exposure comprising core Information Technology (IT) staff, treasury and marketers from those institutions.

Aside this, he said, there is customer-based customization as well as banks and country based customization respectively.

He maintained that banks in search of applications first look at Finacle, which gladdens his firm.

Okere, however, noted that key challenge to the deployment of solution application like Finacle in this market is the fact that of manpower deficiency, due to labour market movements and search for greener pastures.

Remmy Nweke

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