JSE Securities Exchange-listed Global Technology recently held its southern African SFI and Globus user group conference at Mount Grace in Magaliesberg. This was the third in its series of user-oriented conferences for the African market, the first two having been held in Harare and Nairobi.
With the theme "No 1", the conference focused on the fact that customers come first for Global Technology, and that the company strives to be a "No 1" partner. The theme of the conference also pointed to Globus as the best-selling banking system in the world, and SFI as the top payment switching software in Africa.
Ray Leonard, Global Technology chairman, says the conference was held to bring together Globus and SFI customers and give them an opportunity to discuss how they are using the solutions and what challenges they are experiencing.
"Bringing our clients together in this way gives them a forum in which they can share ideas and ultimately maximise the return gained from Globus and SFI by all clients," says Leonard. "A primary objective was to provide information for our clients and listen to their experiences as users of our solutions. This will allow us to determine product and services requirements for our clients in the southern African region."
The conference was attended by 60 delegates from Cape Town, Johannesburg, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, representing clients such as the Botswana Building Society and the Royal Bank of Zimbabwe.
The agenda included a banking simulation using Global Technology`s proprietary software which has been developed to train African bankers. The simulation models real-world banking and requires delegates to develop a mission statement and strategy for their bank. Participants were made members of a management team responsible for running all aspects of a commercial bank. They were faced with competition from other banks operating in the same environment and subjected to a changing economy.
"Based on actual scenarios, delegates are provided with balance sheets and income statements for the banks we set up and they are required to produce a business plan and make multiple decisions around the development of the bank," says Leonard. "This not only gives the IT people who attend the conference a better idea of the issues that their banks face on a daily basis, but it also encourages participation in the programme and the exchange of ideas."
Leonard says banking simulations are designed to give members of a team the opportunity to face real-life situations in a sheltered scenario, while exposing them to experiences which would normally take years to acquire.
Globus was developed by Swiss-listed Temenos, in which Global Technology has a 15% stake. It is a fully integrated, real-time system which addresses the demands of financial institutions such as central, wholesale, commercial, retail, private, investment banks and finance companies. It is used at over 500 sites in 96 countries, and for the past four years more new Globus systems have been installed than any other core banking application, according to the International Banking Systems Report.
"Globus was designed to give banks and financial institutions the flexibility and capacity to exceed the needs of their most demanding customers," says Leonard. "Because it is a fully modular system, it allows institutions to install only those modules that the business requires, while giving them the ability to add modules as the business grows. This makes it a perfect fit for the African banking environment."
SFI Bulk Clearing Switch enables virtually any organisation to centralise payments and clearing. This can be done on a regional, national, corporate or customer level to enable better financial control and management. "SFI has the added cost benefit of having being developed in SA," says Leonard.
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