Taking a broad look at the work carried out,Waititu believed that training, implementation and technical knowledge transfer gave the bank the capacity to launch new products and carry out serious integrations 'as there is deep knowledge of the system' internally. He criticised the lack of deep understanding of Finacle by Infosys' chosen third-party implementation partner. He also pointed to a lack of extensive end-to-end understanding of the system by the vendor's support team as having led to teething problems during integration work.
This has not diminished the appetite for further progress within Equity Bank. New products, such as Visa debit and credit cards, mobile banking, and EFTPOS were on their way in 2007/08. A call centre was mooted, and more work to integrate new systems (such as money transfer, ERP, CRM, data warehouse, credit-scoring, and risk management) was to follow, saidWaititu. Integration of the systems covering new lines of business systems, such as investment banking, securities brokerage and bancassurance, was also to be added to the workload.
'The system is worth the money and we are happy to have a good core banking platform to support our rapid expansion strategy,' statedWaititu. He believed that customer service improved 'tremendously', while he described time to market for new products, delivery channels and business lines as 'short'. The system, he concluded, 'does offer a competitive advantage, particularly as the banking sector in Kenya 'goes into a phase of consolidation'.
