Global Solutions Limited, distributors of TEMENOS Banking Software in West Africa, last month participated in the annual Temenos Community Forum (TCF) held in Rome, Italy, as a Gold sponsor.

The four-day event held on the theme “Succeeding through the Digital Revolution” gave Global Solutions clients the opportunity to keep abreast with the digital trends in a dynamic banking industry.

The event discussed how digitisation is bringing about change, with cloud computing lowering the cost of doing business; improvements in mobile technology rendering banking far more accessible; making it possible for firms to draw major insights into customers’ lives; and, social media providing the opportunity to inject a social context into banking services.

Commenting on the theme, Olufemi Muraino, Director, Strategic Sales and Marketing, Global Solutions, said: “Digitisation is fundamentally changing the dynamics of the banking industry. It is simultaneously giving more power to customers while opening up the industry to new non-traditional competitors”. 

Olufemi believes banks have the potential to succeed in the digital age, thanks to their existing assets such as large customer bases, access to rich transactional data, and the ability to offer integrated financial services.

“The banking industry is undergoing a massive transformation, with the Internet alone changing how banks operate -- which in the past was dominated by branch banking performed within a bank’s opening hours. Now banking is ubiquitous,” he says.

According to Mr. Ben Robinson, Chief Marketing/ Strategy, Temenos, “Banks must find a way to increase benefits from their copious assets if they are to remain competitive. In particular, they should concentrate on ridding themselves of legacy (technology and processes), on developing a balanced multichannel delivery model, on deepening their data analysis capabilities and, lastly, on playing a greater role in their customers’ lives”.

GSL is a member of the multinational Inlaks Computers, which is one of the largest vendors of information technology services and infrastructure to the financial, manufacturing and government sectors in the sub-region -- and is also a Business Partner for Emerson Network Power (Liebert range of UPS), Watford Control, Ramco and ORACLE.

Currently, ARB APEX Bank, Bank of Ghana, Cal Bank, HFC Bank, UniBank, The Royal Bank, City Investments Company, UT Bank, First Capital Bank, EB-Accion Savings and Loans, and all 130 Rural/Community Banks among others are using its TemenosT24 platform.