Ecobank Connects 34 African Countries with a Unified Cash

Case Study Ecobank connects 34 African countries with a unified cash management system About Ecobank “Thanks to Fusion Cash Management we have been able Largest banking platform Over 10 million to grow our cash management and in Africa customers payments business by 100 percent over a four-year period. ” Located in 1,265 branches 36 countries Isaac Kamuta Group Head: Cash Management & Client Access, Corporate and Investment Bank, ecobank.com Ecobank

About Fusion Cash Management

Fusion Cash Management addresses the growing ubiquity of faster, modern payments with integrated liquidity management tools and working capital-focused capabilities. The solution enables a bank’s customers to automate payables and receivables, gain real-time cash position visibility, and leverage automated delivery tools for balance and information reporting.

2 FINASTRA Ecobank connects 34 African countries with a unified cash management system Case Study The Challenge Embracing change Ecobank empowers international business development in Africa with a consolidated payments system powered by Fusion Cash Management from Finastra.

In recent decades, the combined forces of Oluwole Akinroye, Group Product Head, Ecobank knew that any solutions it used globalization and demographic change have Payments at Ecobank, says: “We set out to build the common payments platform given rise to a host of exciting opportunities to make banking more convenient for our would need to be sufficiently flexible to for economic development and business corporate clients by enabling them to see accommodate all the varying local business growth in Africa. all their accounts in a single dashboard, practices applied in the different countries in and perform all their financial transactions which the bank operates, yet also powerful As the largest pan-African bank, Ecobank electronically. We knew that by establishing enough to support a high volume of is on a mission to drive the economic a single platform for payments, we could transactions across the bank’s network. development and the financial integration significantly improve our ability to compete of businesses and individuals across with international banks and pave the way Africa. To achieve this, it looked to create for the development of innovative digital a unified payments and cash management banking solutions.” platform that would enable it to meet increasing customer demand for even more A centralized cash management platform sophisticated banking services across would also help Ecobank automate manual the continent. transactions through new electronic channels; this would, in turn, greatly improve processing efficiency and reduce operational costs.

3 FINASTRA Ecobank connects 34 African countries with a unified cash management system Case Study

The challenge The solution Delivery journey The result The Solution

Overcoming complexity Ecobank creates an innovative cross-border payment and cash management system with Fusion Cash Management—fueling international expansion.

Ecobank realized that building a cash “Our digital strategy, stipulated management system that could meet its digitalizing ourselves, our unique requirements from scratch would customers and our stakeholders. be incredibly time- and resource-intensive, and require the bank to commit to long-term Fusion Cash Management was the IT expenditure, while also greatly increasing catalyst that enabled this for our its risk exposure. corporate customers.” Instead, Ecobank selected Fusion Cash Management from Finastra as a platform Tomisin Fashina PhD to build Ecobank Omni: its own integrated, Group CIO/MD, eProcess International SA real-time cross-border payment and cash Ecobank management system.

Isaac Kamuta, Group Head: Cash Management & Client Access, Corporate and Investment Bank at Ecobank, says: “Fusion Cash Management stood apart from other solutions because it was flexible enough to support our unique needs, and provided the best strategic fit for our business.”

4 FINASTRA Ecobank connects 34 African countries with a unified cash management system Case Study

The challenge The solution Delivery journey The result Delivery Journey “Finastra’s commitment to Attracting new customers our vision of developing With support from Finastra, Ecobank rolled out Fusion Cash Management across multiple countries quickly and effectively. a pan-African cash Ecobank was impressed with Finastra’s Oluwole Akinroye adds: “We set out to strong track record of successfully develop a cash management system that management solution delivering solutions for some of the world’s was flexible enough to accommodate biggest banks—a critical consideration varying local business practices, convinced us that the given the scale of Ecobank’s yet powerful enough to support a high corporate-wide initiative. volume of transactions across our entire network. We are confident that we have Starting with a single-country pilot been able to implement a robust solution Finastra team could support implementation in June 2011, the bank that will facilitate cross-border and multi- eventually embarked on a swift and currency business for our customers— focused implementation of Fusion Cash removing many of the traditional a complex, aggressive Management across its branch network. bottlenecks in the cash management Isaac Kamuta explains: “With the support of process and powering economic multi-country rollout.” Finastra, we were able to bring 34 countries development in Africa.” on-stream in just three years, with minimal Oluwole Akinroye disruption to business.” Group Product Head Payments Ecobank

5 FINASTRA Ecobank connects 34 African countries with a unified cash management system Case Study

The challenge The solution Delivery journey The result The Result

Exponential Growth Fusion Cash Management enables Ecobank to broaden its customer base, helping it to onboard an average of 4,000 new customers each year.

With Fusion Cash Management powering Since launching Ecobank Omni, the bank Using the straight-through processing Oluwole Akinroye concludes: “The Finastra its core payment and transaction services, has significantly increased transaction features of the Finastra solution, Ecobank solution has helped us to establish a 100% Ecobank has consistently grown its volumes, while also streamlining its has been able to automate over 20 percent consistent, standardized interface across growth in cash customer base by more than 25 percent mission-critical cash management of manual funds transfers—making it easy all of our operations, a feat that no other management and year-on-year. processes. for customers to make rapid, reliable and financial institution has been able to achieve payments business in secure transfers and freeing up employees in Africa. What’s more, we have been able “By developing a versatile cash Isaac Kamuta comments: “Thanks to to focus on revenue-generating tasks. to take this standardized approach while four years management system, we can participate in Fusion Cash Management we have been still customizing our platform to support more requests for proposal from potential able to grow our cash management and Olufemi Sojirin, CIO Commercial, the different languages, currencies and clients,” comments Isaac Kamuta. “As a payments business by 100 percent over a Corporate and Investment Banking at regulatory requirements of the communities result, we are much better placed to build four-year period. This growth corresponds Ecobank reflects: “With Fusion Cash $21 billion we serve.” strong relationships with new customers, with a boost in transaction volumes. For Management we have been able to further increase in transaction including large multinational companies.” instance, from 2017 to 2018, we recorded drive our unique value proposition across volumes from 2017 an 86 percent increase in transaction 34 countries, by providing a consolidated Oluwole Akinroye comments: “Thanks to to 2018 volumes with a collective total value of service for payments, collections, liquidity our cash management platform, we have USD 21 billion.” management, supply chain finance and enhanced cross-selling opportunities for our trade to our customers.” products and services, which has helped Tomisin Fashina says: “Fusion Cash 20% us to increase our share of wallet for both Management fitted perfectly into our digital With Ecobank Omni, Ecobank can offer of manual funds prospective and existing customers. We banking strategy, and enabled us to provide comprehensive online banking functionality have also enhanced our brand visibility and seamless digital experience to our growing to its corporate and high-value domestic transfers automated won a larger ‘share of mind’ among our customer base as they fulfilled their banking customers—including feature- customers through our integrated ‘one bank, transactional needs.” rich liquidity and enterprise transaction one platform’ solution across the region.” management capabilities.

6 FINASTRA Ecobank connects 34 African countries with a unified cash management system Case Study

The challenge The solution Delivery journey The result Contact us

A F Finastra is building an open platform that accelerates collaboration and innovation in fi nancial services, creating better 4 Kingdom Street experiences for people, businesses and communities. Supported by the broadest and deepest portfolio of fi nancial services Paddington software, Finastra delivers this vitally important technology to fi nancial institutions of all sizes across the globe, including London W2 6BD 90 of the world’s top100 banks. Our open architecture approach brings together a number of partners and innovators. United ingdom Together we are leading the way in which applications are written, deployed and consumed in fi nancial services to evolve T: +44 20 3320 5000 with the changing needs of customers. Learn more at fi nastra.com

GL 3051 / 0620