Although African countries tend to lag behind global technological growth, Kenya is an exception, boasting a state-of-the-art banking system. The Co-operative Bank of Kenya, one of the country's top four banks, has launched a Centralised Banking System, providing 'branchless bank' facilities to its customers.
Global e-commerce player Sun Microsystems has played an integral part in the centralisation of the bank.
"Sun has installed Enterprise 5500 and 3500 Servers and the system is running smoothly on the Solaris operating environment," says Sam Mutungi, general manager: operations at Co-operative Bank of Kenya.
"The Co-operative Bank is one of only three banks in the country to implement an IT-based centralised real-time banking concept. We have become a one-stop bank, embracing the 'branchless bank' concept. By providing improved customer convenience, operational efficiency and increased revenue collection, we are escalating opportunities for business growth," says Mutungi. The IT system was provided by Sun's channel partner, ICL Kenya Ltd. The globally popular banking application software Kindle Banking is running on the Solaris environment at the Bank and the applications include BankingMaster, BranchPower, Fontis and TPS.
"The Sun Enterprise servers features dynamic reconfiguration and alternate pathing, ideal for business applications and databases," says Ben Neveling, regional sales manager for Africa at Sun Microsystems. In a project that took two-and-a-half years to complete, the bank's customers can now use countrywide ATMs, smart cards, utility pre-payments, debit and credit cards.
"We took the decision to centralise our banking as our previous system was too costly. In addition, as it ran on localised networks, with each branch operating on an independent computer system, it was inconvenient and not efficient enough," says Mutungi.
"Since the new system has gone live, the feedback from our customers has been very positive, our banking image has improved and our staff morale is high." The Co-operative Bank is wholly owned by Kenyans and is one of the leading providers of commercial banking focusing on small and micro banking. "Sun is proud to be a part of the technological enhancement of Kenya," says Neveling. Sun is rapidly expanding into Africa with various countries already having gained from Sun's expertise including SA, Swaziland, Namibia, Zambia and Nigeria.
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Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- The Network Is The Computer -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc (Nasdaq: SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Net and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. With $19.2 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com.
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