Nigerian bank customers, currently reeling under the burden of several charges and deductions, poor service delivery, among others,are set to witness more disruptions and pains in the coming weeks and possibly months as more financial institutions join in the bandwagon of systems upgrades.
Metrobusinessnews.com (MBN) gathered that although the upgrades were being engineered by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), most banks are desirous of improving on their service delivery inview of the emerging competitive and difficult operating enviroment.
It was further gathered that the thinking withing CBN is that banks are seen as the primary agents for the push and achievement of the envisaged $1 trillion economy and as such, they are expected to be ready all-round for the seamless realization of the objectives.
While a few of the banks have already made the switch with the attendant sufferings by the customers as most of them could neither embark on transactions nor pay creditors and employees for those days, more banks are in the process of starting their core banking system migration as they all race to strengthen their technology infrastructure.
Service Disruptions By Banks So Far
Sterling Bank customers were the first casualties with disruptive services which lasted for days earlier in September as the lender commenced the migration of its systems from T24 to SEABaaS, a new custom-built core banking application locally developed.
GTBank recently migrated from Basis/Banks software from ICS Financial Services, a Jordanian/UK software company, to Indian banking technology, Finacle.
The bank experienced hacking of its website on August 14, 2024 that almost created fears in the public, but for the quick response from its management.
”Our attention has been drawn to reports in the media alleging that hackers have seized the Bank’s website, cloned it and intercepted customer data.
While there was an isolated incident of an attempt to compromise our website domain, we would like to assure all our Customers and Stakeholders that the Bank’s website has not been cloned and that we do not store customer information on our website, and as such, there has been no instance of compromise of customer data.
Our dedicated team of Information Security Experts are currently working round the clock to restore domain settings, and we can assure our customers that our website will be up shortly.
We urge all our Customers to please disregard the claims in these media reports and assure you of our unwavering commitment to safeguarding customer data.
Thank you for your continued support,” management’s attempt at dousing tension and anxiety among the bank’s customers.
Also, customers of Zenith Bank, on October 1, woke up to a disruptive service experience, with branches closing to customers by 1pm while the office operations closed by 2pm.
However, the bank later announced to its customers that it was carrying out a ‘routine IT maintenance’ seeking for understanding of its customers.
Zenith bank is migrating its system from Phoenix, a software developed by London-based Finastra, to Oracle’s Flexcube, in its continued efforts at exceeding expectations of its customers..
MBN further gathered that many more lenders are planning for migrating from their current core banking softwares to new ones, development that would impact negatively on their customers in terms of service delivery.
Access Bank Set To Shut Services
Access Bank has announced that it will temporarily shut services for a system upgrade aimed at optimising its offerings to customers.
In an email sent to its customers on Tuesday, the bank stated that the upgrade will take place in phases, starting on Saturday, October 12, at 10 pm and ending on Sunday, October 13, at 6:30 am.
The bank added that during this period, customers may experience temporary service disruptions on the Access More app, Internet Banking platform, and ATMs.
The message read, “Dear Valued Customer, in line with our continuous drive to better serve you, we embarked on a comprehensive system upgrade to optimise the functionality of our systems.
:The upgrade exercise, which will take place in phases, starts on Saturday, October 12 at 10pm to Sunday, October 13, 2024 at 6:30 am (West African Time).”
However, the bank assured customers that their cards will remain operational, and the *901# service will still be available for funds transfers, airtime and data purchases, as well as bill payments.
Bitter Pills For Customers, As Banks See As Necessary For More Patronage
But, bank customers say the service disruptions are bitter pills that they are forced to swallow.
But the in the other hand see the development as necessary if only they will continue in business.
ALSO READ:GTBank Moves To Douse Tension After Attempted Website Breach
They argue that the essence is to make their customers to have good experience, hence the need to provide them platforms to carry out more transactions daily because that is where they make money from.
The banks are aware of the excruciating migration experience by the customers, but the need to remain competitive is their major concern for now..
”Migrating to a new core banking system is not just a mere switching off/on of a thing, it takes some times and in some exceptional cases, could take some few months,” a source familiar with the development told MBN.
Speaking further, he said, this is because the banks will need to integrate their various channels such as ATM, USSD, internet banking, and so during the process of migration, stressing that, this may be part of the reasons for relatively longer time for them to stabilize,.
Also, with the increase in the incidence of hacking as recently experienced by GTBank, some of the banks are looking for systems that have better security, hence the move to new systems.
