Sterling Bank’s Homegrown Core Banking System Processes 2 Billion Transactions, Eyeing Efficiency
Sterling Bank, a prominent Nigerian tier-2 financial institution boasting a market capitalization of ₦390.9 billion, has successfully leveraged its custom-built core banking application (CBA), SEABaaS, to process a staggering two billion transactions over the past year. This remarkable achievement comes with the added distinction of zero downtime, underscoring the system’s robustness and efficiency. This strategic move highlights Sterling Bank’s commitment to technological independence and operational optimization within the competitive African financial landscape.
A Bold Leap Towards Local Innovation and Cost Efficiency
The successful implementation of SEABaaS marks a significant departure from conventional practices. Sterling Bank transitioned from T24, a widely used platform developed by Geneva-headquartered Temenos AG, to its internally developed solution. This migration was part of a broader wave of core banking system upgrades across Nigeria’s financial sector in 2024. While many of its peers, such as GTBank and Access Bank, opted for established foreign platforms like Finacle, Sterling Bank placed its trust in a custom-built, local platform. This ambitious shift, however, was not without its initial hurdles; at the time of migration, over three million Sterling customers experienced service disruptions for several days, leading to considerable frustration expressed on social media. The decision to embrace a homegrown system was largely driven by the increasing pressure on Nigerian banks to optimize operational costs while simultaneously managing an exploding volume of digital transactions. A TechCabal report indicates that Nigerian commercial banks typically incur annual expenses of at least $10 million on core banking applications, making cost efficiency a critical factor in technology investment decisions.
The exceptional performance of SEABaaS, processing billions of transactions without a single outage, strongly vindicates Sterling Bank’s bold decision to invest in local innovation. Despite initial challenges, the platform’s stability and capacity prove the viability of custom-built, African-centric solutions. This achievement positions Sterling Bank as a trailblazer, demonstrating how indigenous technological development can deliver resilient and cost-effective financial services, contributing significantly to the evolving digital banking ecosystem in Nigeria and across the continent.
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