Nigerian Keystone Bank Adopts IBM Smarter Computing Solution

Keystone Bank Ltd
announced the transformation of its business as a result
of its acquisition of technology from IBM Corporation,
ushering in a new era of service delivery culture, and
customer-centric operations for the bank.

Keystone Bank deployed a range of IBM software and hardware
systems and technology solutions enabling the bank to upgrade its computing and
service delivery capabilities. The bank’s back-end operational processes have
improved to higher efficiency levels hitherto unseen in the history of the bank
and its ability to provide service to internal and external stakeholders has
been strengthened. The new IBM systems deliver a 90% increase in process
performance and have resulted in a 60% reduction in operating costs for the
bank.

Within the first month of implementing the solution, the
bank’s end-of-day processing time for its daily customer transactions reduced
from between seven to eight hours to less than three hours. Its IBM-enabled
‘computing capacity’ has also resulted in faster turnaround times for
interdepartmental transactions, and boosted its ability to meet and exceed
regulatory and customer obligations.

The bank decided to make technology the key driver and cornerstone
of its business transformation and growth agenda in 2012, hence its decision to
deploy smarter banking concepts and principles. As a result of this initiative,
and investment in IT, the bank’s in-house systems, processes and capabilities
have been overhauled.

"Our decision to go
with IBM’s technology offering has paid off handsomely for the bank. Almost
overnight, we experienced very significant cost savings and improvements in our
data and transactions processing times," said Phillip Ikeazor,
Keystone Bank’s CEO. "IBM provided
Keystone Bank with superior technology, a better strategic roadmap going
forward and lower cost of operations. Our goal of enabling our personnel to
deliver prompt, cost effective and efficient service to customers and help
transform our market perception and the way we function as a bank is well on
course."

Keystone Bank’s history reflects an enduring tradition of
embracing change, against the backdrop of a tough economic environment. In the
past decade, the Nigerian banking sector has experienced spates of regulatory
reforms and consolidations resulting in frequent realigning and contraction of
the financial services landscape. Keystone Bank is one of several
Nigerian-owned banks on the sales block for possible acquisition by investors.
The bank’s current management team was appointed by Nigeria’s apex bank and
industry regulator, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2011.

"We provided a
scalable, bespoke suite of systems and solutions for Keystone Bank, and the
best-in-class smarter banking technology that IBM deployed and implemented for
the bank will cater for its current and future data management and transaction
processing requirements," said Taiwo Otiti, IBM’s country GM for West
Africa. "Banking and technology have
become inseparable. No financial institution can survive today’s harsh market
conditions without a robust technology platform."

Keystone Bank joins more than 26 banks across Africa that are
working with IBM to drive the growth of the financial services sector in their
respective markets. IBM is rapidly extending its capabilities to a growing
number of clients across the continent where it has locations in more than 20
countries.

IBM provided the bank with IBM Power 795 and Power 770 enterprise
servers. Supporting the bank’s mission critical core banking, database
and information management applications, the new Power Systems severs run AIX OS, PowerVM virtualization technology and PowerHA software for disaster
resiliency. Additionally, IBM provided IBM System Storage DS8800 to meet the banks’ growing data and storage needs.

The agreement was facilitated by local business partner, Net
Solutions Ltd and the IBM systems went live in 2012.

IBM recently announced two key banking agreements: the
delivery of a data centre for Ghana’s Fidelity Bank and
the implementation of the core banking systems of
Kinshasa-based Rawbank, the largest bank in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
as it sought to grow its customer base in the largely un-banked Central African
country.

Smart technology decision making will increasingly be the
differentiator in the continent’s financial markets, said Otiti, who confirmed
that many of Nigeria’s 20 banks currently run on IBM’s enterprise server
systems. Five of Kenya’s leading banks (Credit Bank, Co-operative Bank, Family
Bank, National Bank of Kenya and National Industrial Credit Bank) also recently
turned to IBM to help them deliver IT solutions tailored for their
markets.