DAILY TRUST
There appears to be no respite yet for the Nigerian banking public following the upgrades being carried out by some deposit money banks (DMBs) in recent times, Daily Trust reports.
Despite recent assurances by the institutions, Nigerians have continued to express frustration over the lingering glitches in the banks’ operations with the many customers unable to either access account balances or confirm transfers.
Daily Trust reports that many banks recently conducted upgrades to their core banking applications with a view to being at par with the evolving financial system.
Core banking migrations refer to the process where a bank upgrades or replaces its banking system comprising the central software that manages its most critical operations like account management, transactions, loans, and payments.
According to experts, the system is the backbone of a bank’s services, and upgrading it increases security, efficiency, and an institution’s ability to handle new technologies.
Major DMBs had carried out the migration, causing bank customers’ untold hardship as they could not access their accounts.
Experts and some customers said the banks ought to have deployed strategies such as “piecemeal migration”, or “overnight overhaul”, to reduce the hardship being experienced by their customers.
‘How the stress evolved’
Sterling Bank started the migration on September 10, transiting to a new core banking system called SeaBaaS.
Following the migration, many of its customers faced difficulty transacting for weeks, leaving many people stranded.
A customer of the bank, who gave her name as Halima Musa, described the stress she passed through as “traumatic”.
“It was a trying moment for me because I rarely hold cash…All my transactions are online, including making payments and settling bills. I also buy GSM recharge cards through the banking app.
“However, when they started the so-called upgrade, we were rendered helpless. We could not do anything. But when respite came after completion of the upgrade, I saw a deposit of N100,000, purportedly from a business partner.
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