Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) has admitted facing difficulties in its recent transition to a new core banking system, Finacle Suite of Core Banking Application Systems, which caused disruptions to its services.
While apologizing to its customers, the bank in a statement acknowledged the inconveniences experienced by customers and expressed gratitude for their patience and continued support during the challenging period. GTBank reaffirmed its commitment to improving the customer experience, stating that the system upgrade was necessary to enhance agility, adaptability, and service delivery. Reassuring its customers that the transition was aimed at achieving a seamless and superior service experience in the long term, GTBank explained:
“When we began the process of implementing the new Finacle Suite of Core Banking Application Systems, our goals were clear: to remain agile as we grow, adaptable, and most importantly, to improve your service experience. Yet, we must humbly acknowledge the challenges along the way. The process, though necessary, brought with it delays in transaction processing and interruptions to what should be seamless service and we sincerely apologize for this. We recognize how deeply this period of service disruptions affected your personal activities and business operations and we thank you for standing with us through it all, offering grace in times of frustration. Thank you for believing in us and allowing us the privilege of continuing to serve you. We are grateful beyond measure.”
Backstory
GTBank had on October 9th, 2024 notified its customers of an impending migration of its core banking application system to a new one, which would cause a temporary disruption in banking services. The transition to a new and robust suite of Finacle Core Banking Application Systems was set to commence on Friday, October 11, 2024, and was expected to be completed by Monday, October 14, 2024. However, the Bank had to extend its initial timeline of service restoration, saying the transition was taking longer than anticipated. During that period, customers of the Bank struggled to transact, many were frustrated as they could not withdraw their money in the bank. GTBank was not the only Nigerian bank that had transitioned to a new core banking system in recent time. Customers of tier-2 Sterling Bank were the first to experience the disruptions that lasted for days earlier in September as the lender commenced the migration of its systems from T24 to SEABaaS, a new custom-built core banking application locally developed.
Similarly, customers of Zenith Bank woke to a harrowing experience of service outage on October 1. The Bank would later announce it was carrying out a ‘routine IT maintenance’ the results of which the customers are yet to recover from as of the time of filling this report. Zenith is migrating its system from Phoenix, a software developed by London-based Finastra, to Oracle’s Flexcube. Industry sources have also hinted that other banks are planning to transition but would not want to announce it in order not to cause panic withdrawals by their customers.
