First Bank Nigeria (FBN) has announced plans to transition to a new cloud-based procurement and financial platform as part of its ongoing strategy to improve operational efficiency and service delivery.
The migration, scheduled to begin on Saturday, October 26, is expected to result in temporary service disruptions only for its suppliers, not its banking customers., the tier one lender with over 42 million customers said in a Wednesday notice.
This move comes amid a wave of recent disruptions in the Nigerian banking sector, as several financial institutions undergo upgrades to their core banking systems.
Since September, at least four major banks in the country have switched their core banking applications, including tier-1 lenders such as Zenith Bank and Guaranty Trust Bank.
FirstBank also dismissed a report that it was planning a system upgrade that would see the disruption of normal services to its customers for about 10 days.
Addressing a misleading report circulating in the media regarding a system upgrade at the bank, FirstBank said,
“The message which was incorrectly interpreted and reported was sent to, and intended for our vendors only and focused on transitioning from our current I-Supplier Platform (our automated platform that connects us to suppliers) to a new Cloud-based Supplier Platform (world-class platform for managing suppliers), to enable additional capabilities and benefits for our vendors,” the bank said.
