by John Barber, Vice President, Europe, Infosys Finacle and Rama Gabbita, Global Head, GSI Partner Industry Solutions, FSI at Google Cloud

Here is a sprinkling of digital banking stats:

• Globally, more than 118 billion real-time payment transactions were made in 2021, up nearly 65 percent over the previous year, and expected to cross 427 billion by 2026.
• As per an estimate, about 75 percent of the population used digital banking in the United States in 2021.
• More than 96 percent of India’s 6 billion monthly UPI-based real-time open payments are originated by big tech and fintech companies.
• Today’s digital customers have high system performance expectations – for example, the response to a balance inquiry must not take more than 10 milliseconds; all services should be available 24/7; they also have a very low tolerance for technical failures.

As these forces, namely, increasing consumer digital adoption, rise of non-banking players, and high experience expectations, converge around them, traditional banks are pushing ahead with their own digital plans. And cloud is a key enabler of that transformation.

A recent report from Infosys Finacle and Google Cloud says that cloud is driving digital banking success in four ways:

Maximizing digital engagement by enabling insights-driven propositions: Today’s customers want banking experiences to match shopping on Amazon and viewing on Netflix – personalized, frictionless, and seamless across channels. In fact, they would prefer banking to be embedded so deeply within their primary consumption journeys as to be almost invisible.  To provide the innovative products and contextual experiences that customers seek, banks must gather customer data across channels, and use its insights to create personalized solutions. Only cloud can meet the analytical requirements of banks, which on average, handle 1.9 petabytes of data each day. By providing seamless, democratic access to data and real-time interactions at unlimited scale, as well as a variety of tools, cloud helps banks engage customers better.

Driving digital innovation in the form of platform banking models:  Innovation leadership passed on to non-bank players, such as fintech and big tech, a few years ago. With retailers, telecom operators, and other businesses making a play for certain financial service niches, competitive boundaries have started to blur; the good news is that this has opened up opportunities for incumbent banks and their new rivals to collaborate within an ecosystem or embedded model of banking. Cloud supports this by cutting down the cost and time of provisioning compute and storage resources for innovation, besides offering a variety of technology capabilities as a service. This allows banks to take new products to market much faster than before. For instance, China’s WeBank – a leading cloud-based, digital-only bank – is estimated to release 1,000 updates a month, whereas an average universal bank manages only 50-100.

Achieving operational excellence by improving resilience, performance and cost-efficiency: Traditional banks’ operations have been under stress for several years now. Low interest rate incomes, especially in industrialized markets, steadily eroded margins even as compliance and other costs continued to increase. New digital players with light (or zero) physical infrastructure and no legacy technology burden operated at a cost-to-income ratio of 20 to 30 percent, less than half of many banks. With relatively easy capital flowing in, they were also much more agile than incumbent institutions.

When the pandemic broke out, causing an unprecedented increase in digital transactions, resilience joined cost efficiency and performance in the list of operational priorities. Only cloud had all the answers.

Cloud offers highly stable and robust infrastructure, at much lower than on-premise costs. Also, banks can consume technology as a service, saving the cost and effort of managing and maintaining systems.  Use of public cloud services can further cut operational costs.

In conjunction microservices, Containers, and DevOps, cloud streamlines software development to enable fast and flexible deployments at scale. Last but not least, cloud has the strength and scale to maintain high performance even at peak workloads.

Multiplying value from modern technologies: Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, blockchain and other digital technologies can bring enormous value to banks. But they also need massive compute and storage resources. Only cloud can provide these capabilities.

In a recent research study conducted by Infosys, a third of banking respondents said that cloud enabled them to develop highly integrated AI capabilities.  Cloud provides a foundation to run AI and big data models, as well as the latest AI tools on a subscription basis.  It also amplifies other technologies, including blockchain by enhancing scalability and performance.

Way to go

While there is widespread agreement that cloud is the way forward, the journey has been slow so far. Among the different deployment models, private cloud is still the most popular option, being used by 41 percent of banks, while hybrid and public cloud are used by about 30 percent. For the many banks that do not use cloud services, the barriers mainly stem from regulatory and cost issues. It is important to address these concerns without delay and get on cloud, so as not to get left behind.

A question that even banks that have committed to cloud ask is what is the best way forward. Based on our experience, we recommend that banks consider the following while embarking on their journey:

• Scale cloud maturity by moving mission critical workloads along the cloud continuum, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to Platform as a Service (PaaS), and finally, to Software as a Service (SaaS).
• Adopt multi-pronged transformation for migrating applications, leveraging rehosting, refactoring, re-platforming or other options based on application size, customization needs and the level of transformation skills.
• Use hybrid cloud to get the best of both public and private cloud worlds.
• Follow a multi-cloud strategy to unlock maximum value across different workloads and requirements.
• Last but not least, go the distance. It is necessary to migrate a critical mass of at least 60 perent of the workload to achieve optimal results.

To know more about how banks can scale their cloud success, read the report “Scaling Digital Transformation with Cloud”. The report by Infosys Finacle and Google Cloud delves into the need to accelerate cloud adoption and provides insights on the potential impact of the cloud across value streams. It also highlights the current state of the industry and puts forth key recommendations to scale cloud success.

Long before the Covid-19 pandemic descended, digital money had already been gaining currency with consumers, small businesses, and large institutions around the world. Covid-19 accelerated that trend. In Asia specifically, it led to a profound shift in the region’s payment landscape.

by Leslie Choo, MD Asia, ACI Worldwide

Almost overnight, it showed why and how real-time payments can make a tangible difference and instantly help accommodate personal and professional needs. Access to immediate funds for basic subsistence and business continuity has now become paramount for consumers and businesses.

The outcome has been a generational leap in behaviour, where customers no longer accept a fragmented payment experience and instead expect and demand an agile, integrated, mobile-first, and consistent payment experience across all channels and form factors.

At the same time, the pandemic prompted consumers and businesses to reassess their use of cash. So much so that by 2025 non-cash transactions in Asia-Pacific are forecast to exceed the one trillion mark. Cash, it seems, now has a real competitor.

The shift to digital gathers momentum

The APAC online payments industry was profoundly impacted by the pandemic, leading to major advances in the market. 97% of consumers now consider the digital channel the best way to interact with their bank or use it as one of several channels in a multichannel or omnichannel offering.

The digital payments revolution continues to lead the way in Asia Pacific. The pace of transformation in APAC is quickening on the back of advances in technology, progressive regulation, a range of competitive participants, including traditional providers and new fintech entrants, evolving consumer needs, and the accelerated digitalisation on the back of the pandemic. In fact, digital payments are expected to account for 91% of total e-commerce spending by 2025 in Southeast Asia, up from 80% in 2020.

It is also widely acknowledged that digital and real-time payments significantly reduced the cash flow issues that plagued supply chains following the Covid-19 outbreak. The ability to pay suppliers, staff, logistics, and utilities digitally reduced the cashflow constraints of many businesses and highlighted the gross inefficiencies and costs associated with cash and traditional payment methods.

Individually, these factors would all generate growth for real-time and digital payments; however, combined, they are almost certain to ensure that high growth and adoption continue unabated. As dependence on digital payments increases, it’s hard to see consumers reverting to their traditional mindset or behaviour.

Explosion of form factors and frictionless payment experiences

As we emerge post-pandemic, payment acceptance infrastructure continues to evolve and drive payment innovation through a range of new payment methods or form factors.

Traditional smartphones and cards will remain the primary payment methods for now. But other forms such as wearables, IoT, and smart home devices will accelerate uptake and expand real-time and digital adoption while continuing to chip away at cash’s receding influence.

Transactions that are frictionless, global, and ubiquitous in nature will define digital banking in Asia, with capabilities being agnostic to payment methods or forms of storage across cards, digital wallets, bank accounts, and open banking.

Meanwhile, new services like ‘Request to Pay’ (R2P) will emerge as key differentiators. With Asia and the US already live and other regions preparing to launch similar initiatives in 2022, expect corporate and government collections to increasingly move to R2P.

Keeping it simple

Digitalisation is also forcing many banks and other financial institutions to rationalise their communication protocols to better navigate and communicate between varying regional standards.

Several traditional and current legacy data standards limit tracking capabilities and can pose major reconciliation and traceability challenges, especially in a real-time environment. ISO 20022, an international standard for electronic data exchange between financial institutions, will help.

ISO 20022 started out with low-value payments (cards, wallets, QR pay etc.) before incorporating high-value, real-time payments (cash management, Swift, etc.). This ability to combine or converge low and high-value real-time payment data makes it ideal for financial services as it dramatically reduces duplication and complexity while improving governance, visibility, and efficiency.

Ultimately, ISO 20022’s flexibility means any new real-time payment infrastructure won’t require a new data standard but can simply be combined with current systems, significantly improving time to market, effectiveness, interoperability, and governance.

Capitalising on cross-border

Despite the market opportunity and a high interest in regional payment scheme integration, cross-border payments have proved elusive in Asia.

Currently, real-time payments are restricted to domestic schemes and a small but growing number of bilateral agreements between close neighbours. But there are moves to change this, as Southeast Asia central banks continue to explore bilateral connectivity and interoperability between their domestic schemes to extend and expand regional linkages within ASEAN and the greater Asia Pacific.

While ASEAN still does not possess an integrated regional payments framework between members like the EU, many bilateral arrangements, such as the upcoming Singapore / India (mid-2022) initiative, have created greater organic integration. This creates a form of regionalisation by stealth rather than by design. As more of these bilateral connections emerge, real-time cross-border payments will surge, and with it, Asia’s economies.

The race to real-time

As the world continues to go digital, there is an opportunity to ride on the growth of digital payments and provide secure and reliable financial services to meet the ever-changing needs of Asia’s consumers. Digital and real-time payments are no longer a nice-to-have but a must-have.

It is clear the deficiencies and inefficiencies of cash are increasingly exposed to even its most ardent supporters, and the momentum is now with digital payments. With so many aligned stakeholders, the future of Asia’s commerce, and consumerism, is now clearly heading toward digital and real-time payments.

Changing consumer and retail trends across the region have propelled the rapid growth of Asia’s digital economy. There is a huge impetus and appetite from all parties for more integrated real-time payment services—consumers demand accessibility, immediacy, and simplicity. These developments are just part of an ongoing evolution of the real-time payments landscape that will see more advanced features being introduced to enhance the payments experience.

The cost of living crisis that the United Kingdom has been reeling under since late last year is set to get worse, with the annual household energy bill predicted to touch £3,600 this winter. This will put enormous financial stress on families, 1.3 million families went into the pandemic with savings of less than a month’s income. How can banks help customers manage their money so that they save costs and earn better returns in these trying times? This article discusses some ideas.

by John Barber, Vice President, Infosys Finacle Europe and Ram Devanarayanan, Head of Business Consulting, Infosys Finacle Europe

Money management features to support budgeting and planning

The first thing banks can do is provide a tool that simplifies budgeting for the ordinary customer. A few mainstream U.K. banks already offer apps that not only group spending by category – food, utility, entertainment, travel, for example – but also allow users to set (and monitor) category-wise budgets.

For retail customers, some banks also support planning for future expenses by creating “savings pots” in which they can accumulate money towards a specific goal. For example, retail customers can save up for school fees, home renovation and emergency funds. Similar to savings pots, business customers can use virtual accounts to manage their money better. This enables them to use money efficiently and save on overdraft costs and earn higher returns through money market investments. Last but not least, virtual accounts also benefit banks by reducing the costs associated with creating new accounts.

Education for a long-term view

Knowing how the money was spent allows customers to take informed actions to manage their finances better. But tools can only do so much. To really improve the state of financial health, banks should join the government and academic institutions in building money management awareness among the general populace. A great example is LifeSkills, a Barclays initiative that has helped more than 13 million young people learn, among other things, money management skills such as budgeting and avoiding fraud. HSBC believes in informing them young by using storytelling and gaming to teach money concepts to kids right from the age of three. The truth is that only sustained education will teach people to plan finances for the long term. At a time when one protracted crisis is following another, the importance of financial planning cannot be overstated.

Banks can also leverage analytical insights to send contextual alerts nudging customers to pay bills on time, sweep excess funds into a higher-rate deposit and renew an insurance policy.

Open banking for control, convenience and choice

Having greater visibility and control helps customers make the best use of depleted resources. Open banking can play a role in this. For example, it enables Variable Recurring Payments (VRP), whereby customers can authorise payment providers to make payments on their behalf within agreed limits. Customers have greater flexibility over setting up/ switching off VRPs compared to Direct Debits and can also see the status of their VRPs on a dashboard.

Another advantage of open banking is better consent management – users can define clear parameters for what they are consenting to. This is also useful for small business customers to manage cash. For instance, a small business can use this facility to authorise AISPs (Account Information Service Providers) and PISPs (Payment Initiation Service Providers) to sweep excess liquidity into an external fund to earn a higher return.

Still, the adoption of open banking is quite limited in the U.K. Besides having data privacy and security concerns, customers don’t fully understand how open banking works and what it could do for them. Since most of these issues can be addressed through education, banks should include open banking awareness in their financial literacy programmes.

This would benefit them too. Open banking is an opportunity for financial institutions to tap ecosystem partnerships to present a more complete service, including non-banking offerings, to customers. They can source the latest, most innovative offerings from fintech companies to fulfil a variety of needs at competitive rates.

Personalised services at the right “moments in time”

At the very least, “correctly” personalised services – based on data analytics – prevent banks from annoying customers with irrelevant offers. But the real reason for personalising banking should be to deliver the right service at the right moment of time as a frictionless experience. This is also very much in the banks’ interest because it reduces the likelihood of customers fulfilling their requirements elsewhere.

Personalisation also builds banks’ customer understanding, crucial for a successful ecosystem play. The future belongs to banks offering competitive financial and non-financial propositions sourced in-house as well as from third-party ecosystem partners. India’s first fintech unicorn, Paytm, exemplifies this; it grew quickly from being a mobile wallet bill payment platform into a vibrant e-commerce marketplace before acquiring a banking license. In the first 18 months, Paytm Payments Bank opened a massive $42 million savings account.

In contrast, financial institutions persisting with the traditional banking model will be relegated to the role of a utility. To avoid that fate, they must invest in a robust digital platform capable of onboarding and supporting a diverse partner ecosystem.

Embedded, invisible banking

Ecosystem banking leads naturally to embedded finance, where banking products and services are inserted so seamlessly within customer journeys as to be almost invisible. Embedded finance fulfils the younger generations’ demand for an Amazon type of all-encompassing, personalised, frictionless and entirely digital experience that the next-generation providers are bringing to market. For example, Paytm offers a wide range of services, including banking, insurance and investments, ticket booking, food delivery, shopping, and of course, seamless payments to finance all of these.

To compete, banks will also need to compete with apps by increasing the capabilities of their apps beyond just core banking processes.  All these evolutions – ecosystem play, platform business model, embedded finance, and app style capabilities – call for comprehensive digital transformation, starting from the banking core. DBS in Singapore is an outstanding example of a traditional financial institution that transformed itself into one of the world’s best digital banks.   But even as other banks go on this digital journey, they should continue to create highly competitive products and services. This is especially important because in difficult times customers’ needs, above everything else, are more value for their money.

The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the trend of customers opting to use an app on their smartphone instead of visiting their local branch. British market research institute Juniper Research estimates that in 2026, around 3.6 billion bank customers worldwide will prefer to communicate with their provider digitally, up from 2.4 billion in 2020.

by Dr Jochen Papenbrock, Head of Financial Technology, NVIDIA EMEA

Artificial intelligence (AI) is establishing itself in the financial sector in areas like risk analysis and portfolio management. But customer care can also benefit from AI, or more precisely from Conversational AI, not just the business. The crucial prerequisite is that the appropriate AI solutions are used for each use case.

What is Conversational AI?

Conversational AI is the application of Machine Learning (ML) to allow humans to interact naturally with devices, machines, and computers using their own speech. As a person speaks, the device works to understand and find the best answer with its own natural-sounding speech. Conversational AI enables customers to interact with their bank via chatbots, voice assistants and voice input.

It is important that the system can answer questions within 300 milliseconds, as longer intervals are perceived as annoying by humans. But this requirement poses a challenge for Conversational AI applications: speed of answers can come at the expense of accuracy, but slow response times can reduce customer satisfaction. Similar to human-to-human communication, the question-answer process has to be fast, accurate, and contextual.

Other potential hurdles for an AI instance are technical terms, ambiguous questions, and colloquial and everyday language or phrases. To overcome challenges like these, Conversational AI uses complex Natural Language Processing (NLP) models and elaborate training procedures, usually with billions of different parameters. Training the models requires high-performance computers with powerful Graphics Processing Units (GPUs).

One of the challenges of Conversational AI is that banks and financial service providers, especially those that operate globally, need to maintain NLP models for multiple languages.

Currently, NLP models are primarily available in English. Fortunately, models can be translated into other languages with minimal effort, so it is not necessary to develop language-specific models completely from scratch.

More computing power required

Conversational AI application developers in the financial sector face another challenge: NLP models are becoming increasingly complex and the number of data sets used to train them is rising. Soon, NLP models will comprise several trillion parameters. But this complexity comes for good reason.

More training data increases the accuracy and performance of models and applications, and large models can be more easily adapted to different tasks at a lower cost. This means application developers will need GPUs with significantly higher computing power and a larger working memory for training extensive, local language models.

What are the benefits?

While using AI and ML in financial services is ground-breaking, what ultimately matters is the benefits these technologies bring.

An important advantage of Conversational AI is improved customer service through applications such as chatbots and voice assistants. Routine queries such as, “I lost my credit card. How can I have it blocked?” can be answered faster, more efficiently, at any time, and without the involvement of a staff member.

One AI instance can process thousands of queries like the above in parallel and answer them in seconds. Customers could check account balances or transactions, change passwords and PINs, and pay bills quickly and easily.

Conversational AI can also be used on the front lines of defence against fraud attempts by identifying and preventing suspicious account movements or putting a stop to digital identity theft by analyzing the caller’s voice pattern.

AI and advisors hand in hand

A combined approach is also an option, where both the AI system and a bank advisor are involved. For example, a customer who needs a mortgage can use Conversational AI to find out a bank’s offers and then clarify specific details with a loan specialist who has access to all previous communications. Should the customer request offer documents, either the AI system or advisor can provide them via smartphone, notebook, or stationary computer, along with a summary of the consultation.

By implementing AI in this way, banks have the opportunity to address more customers and prospects in a targeted manner with less time expenditure.

AI is a high priority for financial firms

When it comes to leveraging the full potential of AI solutions, European banks are still far behind US banks, according to a study by Bain & Company.

But European banks have plans for the coming years. The State of AI in Financial Services report by NVIDIA shows that banks, fintechs and financial service providers are intensively engaged with AI, especially Conversational AI. According to the study, 28% of companies in the financial sector want to invest in the development and implementation of Conversational AI solutions in 2022 – more than three times as many as in 2021. This puts Conversational AI in second place in the ranking of the most important applications for AI, behind AI-based solutions designed to prevent fraudulent activities.

What’s next?

With Conversational AI, banks and financial service providers can take customer experience to a new level. Especially for those who have grown up with the internet, social media and online, this next generation of customers expects their banks to take the next step and further optimize their service with the help of technologies like AI.

Headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, Access Bank is one of the largest and most recognised financial institutions in Africa with operations across 11 countries. The bank called on the services of trusted Oracle Partner, Finonyx Software Solutions for a major upgrade programme across all its subsidiaries

-Robin Amlôt
-Managing Editor, IBS Intelligence

The project was an upgrade to the core banking solution to Oracle FLEXCUBE v12.0.2 at Access Bank subsidiaries in 10 countries. The solution had already been deployed at the bank’s headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria. The project covered:

• Upgrades from legacy versions of FLEXCUBE in 6 countries: DR Congo, Gambia, Ghana, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Zambia.
• The merger of newly acquired Cavmont Bank in Zambia which required migration from third party applications and integration with the FLEXCUBE.
• A further 2 banks required migration from third party applications and integration with the FLEXCUBE – Trasnational Bank in Kenya and Gro Bank in South Africa.
• Greenfield implementations in Guinea and Cameroon.

Ade Bajomo (AB), Executive Director – IT & Operations at Access Bank, explains the business drivers behind the bank’s decision to initiate the project:

AB: “Access Bank has been on an expansion path over the years and has 10 subsidiaries in 10 African countries and is further expanding.  The backend applications used across the subsidiaries were dissimilar – multiple versions of the software, inadequate production support from OEM for tech stack and core banking platform due to the obsolescence of application version, independent satellite applications, lack of standard modern interfaceability between applications, etc.; these created multiple challenges. Technology obsolescence at certain areas, lack of harmony and group level consolidation, inability to launch new products and bring them to market quickly.”

What was the proposed solution?

AB: “Our management and technology review committee decided on a two-phase technology upgrade. Phase 1 to harmonise the solutions across all the subsidiaries to Oracle Flexcube 12.0.2 which is used at the HQ in Lagos, Nigeria. In Phase 2 all subsidiaries and the HQ would upgrade to the latest version of Oracle FLEXCUBE 14.x. Since Access Bank has been using the FLEXCUBE core banking system and the primary goal of the program was solution harmonization – Oracle FLEXCUBE 12.0.2 was an automatic choice.”

How was Finonyx chosen as the partner?

AB: “Post finalisation of the upgrade programme and project plan, Access wanted to bring on board an implementation partner to deliver the program. Finonyx was one of the vendors that met the rigorous evaluation and due-diligence criteria that were set up. Access Bank has associated with Finonyx in one of our earlier successful projects; the efforts and commitment shown by the team steered our decision in favour of Finonyx.”

N V Subba Reddy (NVSR), Managing Director and CEO of Finonyx Software Solutions added: “Finonyx was proud to be associated with Access Bank. In 2019 Access Bank acquired Diamond Bank Limited, Nigeria, Finonyx was the delivery partner for the merger project, and we were able to demonstrate our commitment and quality of delivery. This was a reassurance for the Access Bank management to select Finonyx over competing vendors for this ambitious, multi-country implementation programme.”

What was the implementation process?

NVSR: “The implementation process involved: Product Walkthrough, Product & Interface Harmonisation, Core User Training, Parameterisation, Data migrations, build interfaces between FLEXCUBE and 3rd party systems in each country (regulatory/non-regulatory), SIT, UAT, business simulations and live cutover.

“Given the number of countries and dissimilarity of systems, a stream approach was followed which significantly helped the synergies between the teams at the bank and Finonyx. This also meant that our teams were organised and synchronised for each of these project activities. Our teams could complete a project activity in one country and move on to execute the similar activity at the next country with a precision that simulated an assembly line.

“For instance, the infrastructure team would complete the installation and configuration in Country A, move to Country B and then to C and so on. This was followed by the PWT and training teams, Parameterisation team etc. The same approach was followed across all sites and at 8 countries the applications are live.”

How was the project affected by the pandemic?

NVSR: “We had our share of challenges because of the pandemic. The project was initiated around the first wave of the pandemic due to which we had to take a step back and re-evaluate our plans. The traditional model of onsite implementation was not possible. Over multiple discussion with the team from Access Bank, an offshore delivery model was agreed upon. Effective communication and a robust governance process were formulated and implemented to ensure that the project remained on course to meet the timelines set for country specific go-lives.

“Project participants were affected by Covid-19 infections. However, alternate resource back-up plans were in place to ensure no/minimal disruptions in the execution of programme activities. All challenges, logistical, operational, technical, and managerial, were overcome by the delivery team alongside the creation of an implementation command centre for seamless execution.”

How was the implementation managed by the bank?

AB: “For Access Bank, this is a key programme and a critical element in our technology road map. We had to ensure a conflict free project plan and meet the timelines set towards completion of the project. As a first step – a robust implementation structure and a command centre headed by me as Executive Director was set up in Lagos – the team included the IT, business and operations departments full time at the HQ and the local IT and business teams in the respective countries. The team from Finonyx was aligned to our project team structure. This comprehensive delivery structure involving IT, business and operations teams and a meticulous governance process in the programme plan were instrumental in the overall programme success.

“With this structure in place, the majority of the project was delivered remotely and necessitated only minimal travel for consultants to the local sites. Consultants were required to be onsite only for countries with larger data volumes and the complexity of the sites (interfaces/non-FLEXCUBE legacy application, etc.) around the time of go-lives.

“Currently the solution is live at 8 countries and the final 2 sites are on-course to go-live by end of August and September 2022, respectively.”

What benefits have accrued to the bank because of this implementation?

AB:

• “Standardisation of FLEXCUBE version, business products, third-party interfaces and services across all 10 countries.
• Introduction of Universal Banking System as against 2 separate applications for retail and corporate businesses.
• Standardisation of operating procedures across subsidiaries.
• Launch of new business products / applications to customers of select subsidiaries.
• Centralised Regional Disaster Recovery Data Centre in Lagos for all countries in addition to in-country primary Disaster Recovery Data Centres.
• MIS consolidations have become much easier at the group level daily.
• Significant reduction in the overall programme budget, IT support and management costs
• Increased synergy between subsidiaries and HQ for new business ideas and post-live issues resolution.”