bank completes core banking project in two months

By Asrat Seyoum

Zemen Bank, the only Ethiopian bank anchored in the idea of a single branch banking, is to launch a full-blown internet banking, a service new to Ethiopian banking industry, within a month.

The bank tested the venture through its first phase of the online service, months before, and now it is to commence the full-fledged version, which is expected to enable customers to make online money transfer freely. Previously, the online banking service, delivered by the bank, only gave access to bank statements and exchange rate information.

The new and never-been-tried service proposed by the bank is to include free account money transfer, corporate payroll uploading system where employers could upload payroll to the system and make payments to individual worker’s accounts online and online utility bill settlement system, when utility companies are ready.

Melaku Kebede, vice-president of technology at the bank, told The Reporter that the service will help to graduate Ethiopian paper-money-based society to plastic and other forms of credit systems.
Meanwhile, the bank also announced that the core banking project, kicked off in June, went operational last week, only after two months of implementation time.

The VP attributed the speedy implementation to the effort of his IT team who took over the implementation of the product, Oracle’s Flexcube, one of the leading core banking moguls in the world.

World Bank supported, National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE’s) project to set up a nation-wide automatic clearing system is expected to become operational in April. According to this timetable, the NBE instructed the commercial banks to go to core banking system that will interface with the grand project.

Melaku said that the product used in more than 100 countries around the world, requires trained professionals to be implemented which is an expensive service to import. “In this regard, Zemen was able to save close to 3.5 million birr in implementation cost by using in-house IT professionals.”

Zemen is the third bank to implement Oracle’s Flexcube, originally an Indian product, next to United and Dashien banks, which installed the system earlier.

At the moment, the banks are busy implementing the core banking mogul to work under the industry’s system. On the other hand, the national switch system, which will enable usage of common ATM machines, implemented by bankers association, is also one of the prospects expected to change the order of business in the Ethiopian banking sector.

EthiopianReporter