Some financial observers have bemoaned the low level of technology application among commercial banks in Ghana.
They argue that the development is unchecked, could affect consumer deposits and distort the sector.
It has also emerged that apart from Ecobank, the over 35 local banks operating in the country are yet to secure their data with professional data centers on a cloud software, to minimize complexities in case their servers suffer an attack.
Unlike most banks in the developed world and South Africa and Kenya in Africa, who are already on the cloud software, banks in Ghana have their servers located in one of their branch offices where they access their data from; a situation Darrel Orsmond, head of Banking Industry at SAP Africa, a global technology company, described as risky.
“The banks in Ghana have large legacy problems like a lot of banks across Africa, they’ve built one piece of software systems that does savings account, there’s another one that does credit cards, and another does HR and sometimes they haven’t got a finance system and a lot of excel spread sheets,” he told Citi Business News on the sidelines of the SAP Innovation Day held in Accra.
Darrel explained further that, “In the past, banks would buy some software and install it on their own computer in the bank but with clouds somebody runs that software for you in a computer center and when you are doing your transaction you access that data without going to your machine in your basement. Once they go onto the cloud they focus on running the business which is what they should be doing.”
According to him, core transaction that is done in a month can take some few days and most of the time instantaneous.
“The real benefit comes when you need to develop new products or make changes. These can take the banks years to do but can be done on the cloud within 60 to 90 days,” he added.
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By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana