. Banks Say Nigerian Software Cannot Meet All of Its Needs
By Aaron Ukodie
Software practitioners, today in Lagos, asked that the federal government enact a law making it mandatory for financial services companies to use Nigerian made software. According to them the proposed law should stipulate punishment for any company that violates its provisions.
They spoke at a two-day Stakeholders Roundtable on the Use of Nigerian Software in the Financial Sector. The roundtable has the theme: Adoption and Development of Local Content Technology as Growth Drivers for the Nigerian Economy.
Their proposal came amidst arguments canvassed by representatives of the financial services companies and local software practitioners in Nigeria as to whether local software producers have the expertise and robust products to serve the core banking processes.
A representative of the banking sector, major users of software solutions in Nigeria, Mr Toye Soladoye, Assistant General Manager, Access Bank first stirred the anger of local software producers, when he said that local software made in Nigeria would not for now be able to meet the needs of banks core processing systems.
Soladoye had also said that, while Nigerian software may be able to meet the front end, middle end, data layer and multi-channel layers of financial services software needs, the core system, is an area where the banks are not yet confident to use local software because it is the ‘ heart of the banking system’.
His statement did not go well with speakers at the roundtable, most of whom were software producers. They accused him of speaking from a mindset that holds foreign products as superior to local contents, saying that such attitude would not help the growth and self-sufficiency drive of the nation.
Director at NOTAP, Dr Ephraim Okejiri, said Nigeria banking platforms cannot continue to rely on foreign software to drive its processes, because there are security and economic implications for such reliance, adding that progress can only be made on purpose.
Mr James Emadoye, who represented Dr Yele Okeremi, President of Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) said Nigeria cannot continue with the current situation where financial platforms prefer foreign software, and where and when they embrace local software, they undervalue and underrate them.
Emadoye, Mr Chris Uwaje, former President of ISPON, who moderated one of the sessions, Mr Azeez Oluwafemi, Head IT Application Solutions, Bimbo Abioye, Group Managing Director, Founder and Co-Owner of Fintrak Software Company and Kema Abontaen, former Director of Standards at NITDA canvassed the view that there was need for Banks to come together to assist software companies’ achieve the type of robustness they are looking for in local software application.
Government can also come up with a policy where the banks provide some per cent of their earnings for the development of software in Nigeria.
While they called for a law to mandate banks to use local software, they however suggested that such policy should be given a timeline for implementation during which all parties would have sorted out all the issues relating to such law.
According to Emadoye, software is software and there was no special skill needed to provide core banking functions software, as Nigerian practitioners already processed such skills.
While shifting some grounds on the position taken by the Nigerian software producers, Soladoye said while there would be need in the future for banks to embrace Nigerian software to run its core banking functions, any attempt to put a timeline for such adoption would be counterproductive, as the banks have shareholders to report to in their value-chain decisions.
One common agreement reached by stakeholders was the need for the stipulation of a common standard for software, the need for more funding of the Nigerian software ecosystem and greater collaboration by the practitioners, the users and the government.
