Business News of Sunday, 1 September 2019

Source: Consolidated Bank Ghana

CBG set to excite customers as it migrates its systems onto a single platform

Managing Director of CBG, Daniel Wilson Addo Managing Director of CBG, Daniel Wilson Addo

Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG), in just one year, has succeeded in creating a single banking application platform, to enable it to deliver homogenous services to customers across all its branches.

CBG inherited different versions of the core banking application and a myriad of supporting applications and interfaces from the banks whose operations is assumed. To enable it to deliver customer service the bank had to employ several workarounds to ensure that there was some level of interconnectivity between the various databases it operated from.

One year after it started operations, the Bank has successfully installed a new and upgraded version of the T24 core banking application and consolidated the various systems it inherited into a single CBG platform, fully integrating the operations of all its 114 branches. This integration will afford customers the opportunity to engage the bank seamlessly across all channels.

The upgraded Temenos 24 (T24) application is a real-time core banking system which is designed to allow banks to scale quickly. It is currently the number one core banking application in the world, secure, robust and easy to interface with other tools and third-party applications.

The Managing Director of CBG, Daniel Wilson Addo in an interview reaffirmed the bank's mission of providing simple, secure and differentiated banking experience by stating that the stage is now set for exciting banking experience for customers. He further explained that the bank leveraged the rich diversity of its staff to work faster and efficiently in consolidating its key systems. He paid glowing tribute to the project team who toiled night and day to ensure that the integration project was delivered on time and within budget. The MD subsequently allayed worries of new system installations and upgrade. “We know some institutions struggle when they install new systems leading to a lot of downtimes but let me assure our customers that our people are already familiar with the application so we won’t have such challenges”.

Mr Addo commended customers of CBG for remaining loyal in the past one year, despite the teething challenges. He said with the core banking application consolidated into a single platform, customers should expect a more exciting banking experience.

CBG has seen a quick turnaround in its operation, a year after it was formed. It has posted its first profit and embarked on an aggressive communications campaign. The staff of the Bank recently embarked on the “We Stand with You” campaign on major streets across the country to signify their commitment to serve clients.

The Bank’s 2019 second-quarter results show a profit after tax of ¢41.1 million, representing about 280 per cent improvement on performance over the 2018 financial results. Total assets of the bank also went up from ¢7.5 billion to ¢8.3 billion, representing a growth of 11% during the same period.