Equity Bank Group together with Infosys Technology, IBM, Oracle and Open Way Group today unveiled the successful upgrade of the Group’s integrated and robust IT platform which will enable the Bank roll out its future technology driven innovative products, provide comprehensive business functionality and enhance customer experience.  

Equity Bank core banking system has now been upgraded to Finacle 10. The enhanced solution allows over 8.7 million Equity Bank customers to transact seamlessly across five countries- Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and South Sudan. Finacle will support the Bank’s efforts to roll out offerings faster, explore new lines of business and deliver a superior banking experience to its customers.

Equity Bank’s multi-country operations will now run on a single instance of Finacle, which is deployed centrally. This helps the Bank save on infrastructure and maintenance costs, while ensuring a 360 degree view of customer relationships. A unified view of customers allows the Bank to offer personalized products and services. Seamless integration across multiple channels and third party systems will facilitate productivity improvements across the Bank. New accounts can be opened in less than five minutes.

The Bank has also enhanced its storage facilities by acquiring and installing the latest enterprise IBM DS8800 storage system to cater for increased storage and processing requirements. The Bank has installed IBMs latest Power 7 systems – p795 to power the Bank’s core banking. This makes its data storage and processing capability the best and most robust in the region.

To further enhance the speed and cope with volume transactions from ATMS, mobile and all self-service channels and analytics, Equity Bank has implemented Oracle SuperCluster. This is Oracle’s fastest and most scalable engineered systems with a capability of supporting more than one million transactions concurrently. The systems deliver extreme performance, the highest consolidation availability and efficiency and eliminate risks of build-it-yourself architecture. This system will ensure the Bank offers customers a delightful experience through high performance and availability of the card and mobile transactions

To support a one-stop payment gateway, Equity Bank has upgraded to Way4 payment switch from OpenWay Group for enhanced payment processing and expanded acquisition strategies including mobile transactions. The system has the capability to acquire and authorize all major cards in the world today like Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB and CUP. The system also supports transactions originating from contactless devices, ecommerce websites, mobile devices, merchant and Payment Associations. Way4 is EMV compliant with card personalization and instant issuing features.  

Speaking while unveiling the new technology platform, Dr. James Mwangi who was in the presence of Peter Hunt, Oracle’s Senior Systems Sales Director -North and East Africa, Lebanon and Jordan; Wim Pardon, CEO OpenWay Group; Nicholas Nesbitt General Manager IBM Eastern Africa and Venkataramana Gosavi, Vice President and Regional Head – Growth Markets, Finacle, Infosys said, “Equity Bank has led the way in fostering financial inclusion. We have created products and services for customers across all segments, starting from the bottom of the pyramid. Our vision is to empower our customers and grow with them to champion the socio-economic prosperity of the people of Africa. We thank our partners, Infosys, IBM, Open Way and Oracle who have walked with us in this venture. We look forward to taking new offerings to our customers faster and grow our market share.”

Venkataramana Gosavi, Vice President and Regional Head – Growth Markets, Finacle, Infosys said, “Africa is experiencing rapid economic growth. It is imperative that banks take advantage of modern technology to realize their true potential in this dynamically growing market. We are privileged to have been a part of the success story that Equity Bank has scripted over the past decade. Our journey with Equity Bank is a great example of how financial institutions can accelerate growth and delight customers with the right technology foundation.”