I&M Bank Uganda over the weekend successfully completed an upgrade of its core banking system to Finacle 10, promising its customers, an improved banking experience.
Finacle is an industry leader in digital banking solutions and a unit of EdgeVerve Systems, itself a wholly-owned product subsidiary of Infosys, a global giant in next-generation digital services and consulting.
Finacle 10, according to its makers renowned for its “powerful multi-country infrastructure and transformational capabilities” and “delivers increased productivity, rapid innovation and a comprehensive set of offerings to meet diverse customer demands”.
“As part of our commitment to remain on the cutting edge of financial services and meet the needs of the changing banking environment, we, last week successfully upgraded our Core Banking System to a more robust and versatile application to enhance the customer banking experience as well as more stability and new functionalities,” Annette Nakiyaga told this reporter in an emailed interview.
The upgrade comes on the heels of the bank’s unveiling of its strategic partnership with Mastercard, a global leader in digital payments and technology. The collaboration aims to revolutionise the banking experience for customers by driving digital transformation and enhancing payment security through cutting-edge digital payment solutions.
The partnership, ushers into the Ugandan market, a range of new I&M Bank Mastercard cards including the I&M Bank Standard Debit Mastercard, I&M Bank World Debit Mastercard, and I&M Bank World Elite Debit Card. As part of the move, the bank is replacing the old Orient Bank-branded Visa cards with I&M Bank Mastercard cards. The old cards stopped working following the core system upgrades.
“We urge all customers with the old cards to visit bank branches to upgrade to the new and improved I&M Bank Mastercards since the new banking system will not be able to support the Visa debit cards,” Ms. Nakiyaga further told this reporter.
“All these developments are in line with our iMara 2.0 strategy, which places digitisation as a key enabler for business growth,” she reiterated.
She said, that following the core system upgrade, more digital solutions would be rolled onto the market.
“As you are aware, I&M Bank Uganda received further recapitalisation from our parent I&M Group. We are now fully compliant with the new central bank guidelines on recapitalisation. As we mark 50 years of the I&M brand transforming lives, this vote of confidence by our shareholders, emboldens us to continue executing relentlessly on our purpose⏤being Uganda’s leading financial partner for growth,” she reiterated.
I&M Bank invests $9m in digitalisation of systems and services to improve customer banking experience
customer banking experienceAt a November 2023 media briefing, Robin Bairstow, the I&M Bank’s CEO told the media that the bank was making strategic and significant investments aimed at improving systems and services that will improve the customers’ banking experience.
He said that over and above heavily investing in a new premium branch at Kingdom Kampala building, the bank was also making several other technology partnerships and investments.
“Technology is a tool that has been used to improve banking operations for ages, and the acceleration spells good news. Our partnership with Mastercard is a viable example of digital transformation that recognizes the increasing importance of payment security. We are looking at about $2m spent on new updated I.T equipment, and the overall spend on new software is in the region of $7m,” he said.
According to Bairstow, the move will take the bank from its premises, right to the clients’ devices. It will also place the bank in markets where they have no physical presence.