JSE Securities Exchange-listed Global Technology has secured a major contract in Africa with the signing of a $1,2 million (about R10 million) contract at Development Bank of Ethiopia. The contract embraces the provision of the Globus banking system, along with rEward, a locally developed and 100%-owned application for processing loan applications and approvals and tracking and managing collections, together with implementation services for both applications.
"In every sense this is a very important new signing," says Global Technology CEO Ray Leonard. "Ethiopia represents new territory for us, and our securing this site allows us to continue expanding our African footprint."
Established in 1970 and headquartered in Addis Ababa, Development Bank of Ethiopia provides short-term loans to the agricultural sector and medium and long-term loans to individuals and co-operatives. The bank has 32 branches and employs 800 people. Owned by the government, it has 3 000 loan clients and assets of $300 million.
Global Technology won the contract in a hotly contested tender against several other bidders. Implementation has begun, with the bank scheduled to go live by the end of March 2003.
Globus, developed by Swiss Stock Exchange-listed Temenos, in which Global Technology has a 15% stake, is the world`s leading banking system, having been installed at 500 sites in 96 countries. For the past three years, more Globus systems have been installed than any other core banking application. rEward, developed by AJS, which Global Technology acquired in 2000, is easily integrated with core banking and other back-end systems. AJS`s systems are in use at over 450 sites, making it an unquestioned market leader in the area of business process automation.
"The tracking and management of collections is critical to the bottom-line profit of every business," notes Leonard. "At the same time, financial organisations can use the collections process to enhance their customer relationships. This is what rEwards does."
"Ethiopia is a country in transition," says Moges Chemere, GM of Development Bank of Ethiopia. "As our market continues to liberalise and grow, we are seeing enhanced demand for loans, and the bank has a pivotal role to play in Ethiopia`s reconstruction. This created the requirement for state-of-the-art back-end systems.
"We chose Global Technology for its ability to provide local support for the market`s leading solutions. In addition, the company has an exceptional track record in Africa.
"Globus and rEward will play key roles in helping us meet our objective, which is to provide loans to help develop aspects of the Ethiopian market. Globus provides us with robust functionality; rEward will ensure we can track our growing number of loans while providing the government and our international donor backers with the assurance of accountability and transparency."
"Our vision is clear," concludes Leonard. "It is to become the leading provider of enterprise business solutions to the business community in our chosen territories. Development Bank of Ethiopia is another significant milestone in the delivery of this vision."
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