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23 July, 2007
An international company of technology solutions for the financial services industry, i-flex, introduced a software, FLEXCUBE, which is built to run retail and corporate banking, treasury, investment and even mutual fund operations, at a workshop given to leaders of the local Banks on Wednesday.
The company provides its service to many African and world banks. Dashen Bank and United Bank have already purchased the package, it was learnt.
Birhanu Getaneh, president of Union Bank, told The Reporter that the Ethiopian banking system is often condemned to be backward. And at a time when our economy is growing and we are serving more customers, every bank has a responsibility to upgrade its service with modern and automated technologies.
"We bought i - flex's software six months ago and from then on we could implement integrated and quick services in all our branches with regard to all banking services. Now our customers are customers of the Union Bank, not customers of a particular branch of the Union Bank."
According to Anil Rai, i-flex's vice president of African sales, the company has got two customers in Ethiopia and expects to have another two by the end of the year. "Ethiopian economy is booming and we have already taken advantage of it. It also kept itself secluded from the international investment. So the financial institutions are welcoming our service. Such efforts would possibly accelerate the growth by incorporating IT solutions."
Representatives of the company noted that FLEXCUBE has helped customers reduce costs and in turn improve the bottom line and stakeholder rewards. It also offers financial institutions through its domain and technology centers of excellence, which encompass areas such as Business Integration, e-service, integration services, insurance and payment systems.
The flexible functional architecture of FLEXCUBE enables it to be deployed across a variety of scenarios such as, internet, ATM, mobile phone, and Teller depending on the financial institution's business model.
Being the pioneer, Union Bank has launched a phone service, with which customers can have easy access to their accounts only by dialing 995.
I-flex is an international company based in India and has got 109 customers in Africa. The world's reputed banks like City and Berkley's are customers of i-flex.
By Abiy Solomon - Ethiopian Reporter