on their own, without any great involvement from large consultants. However, Samara warned that the political nature of the market could also cause sudden changes. A common knee-jerk reaction to political instability has been to bring investment and projects to an abrupt halt. ICS continued to make progress in the region. In the first half of 2003, Yemen Commercial Bank started to implement the centralised version of Banks, with an initial four branches live by October. The bank was apparently also set to use ICS for other areas, including ATMs and phone banking. The bank, which was formed out of the remnants of BCCI, had been one of the first two users of the Autobanker system from Pakistan-based Autosoft (the founder of Autosoft is ex-BCCI). A spokesperson for Autosoft blamed the decision on a change of management at the bank. Most of the arrivals, she said, came from existing Banks user, Jordan Gulf Bank. There was also ongoing work at a number of existing Banks


users. Doha Bank was upgrading to the centralised version of the system. By the fourth quarter of 2003, ICS was bidding in Nepal and Nigeria, the latter via Fidel Logic. Nearer to home, ICS gained a deal as a result of the


aforementioned limited deregulation in Syria. This was at International Bank for Trade & Finance, albeit 49 per cent owned by existing ICS Banks user, Housing Bank for Trade & Finance of Jordan. The contract was finalised in October 2003. One other deal, from a Syrian start-up, Syria Bank for Overseas, went to BML.


These two suppliers similarly made gains in Iraq in 2003. Rebuilding the country’s banking infrastructure is part of the ongoing reconstruction effort and saw the Central Bank restart an implementation of BML’s ICBS. Bank of Baghdad then opted for Banks. At the time of the deal, the bank had 22 branches but was planning to expand. The bank already had a direct presence in all of the country’s major cities and regions. It looked at a number of other packages, said Hazboun, and visited a number of Banks reference sites, including LCB. Understandably, the bank signed for the decentralised version of Banks at the outset, with plans to move to the centralised version as the country’s communications improve. Training started


in October. ICS/Computer & Communications


Systems had done work in the country before, in other vertical markets, including the oil sector on a UN managed project. The project at the bank included internet and mobile banking. Two other wins in Iraq followed, from Emerald Bank


(somewhat confusingly, given the work at the presumably unrelated bank of the same name in Greece) and Warka Bank for Investment and Finance (which had 28 branches), then others at Elaf Islamic Bank, Investment Bank of Iraq and Ashur International Bank for Investment. Elaf Islamic Bank opened with a branch in the green zone in Baghdad and is owned by Warka Bank for Investment and Finance. Warka is on the conventional banking version of Banks and Elaf on the Islamic version. Around one year after going live, Warka Bank’s security manager, Shaymaa Saadi, felt ICS’s system was ideal


for the two banks, with the necessary flexibility and ease of use. The solution covers the full range of the bank’s commercial and retail activities. Its branches are linked via VSAT and leased lines to a central server in Lebanon and to a disaster recovery site in Jordan. Warka Bank was set up in 1999, had recently opened a branch in Beirut and now claimed to be the leading private bank in Iraq. It already provided internet and mobile phone banking and had an on-line ATM network. Of course, ICS hasn’t had things all its own way in Iraq. BML has picked up further deals and a consortium headed by Misys was chosen by the largest state bank, Rafidain Bank. Aside from Iraq, 2005 brought another user in Syria, with


Arab Bank taking Banks for that country towards the end of the year. However, in March 2006, another member of the Arab Bank group, Islamic International Arab Bank in Jordan, opted for Path’s iMAL suite, despite ICS making the supplier shortlist. There was better news for ICS in June 2006 when Sterling Bank in Nigeria decided to standardise on Banks. The bank was formed from a merger of five Nigerian banks as a result of the restructuring mentioned above. One of the five was Magnum Trust Bank, where the system was already in use. Losers with systems at other banks in the merged group were Delta Informatique, which had its only user in the country at NBM Bank, and Misys with Equation at NAL Bank. In North Africa, an important win was at Trust Bank of


Algeria in 2007. This saw the development of a French version of Banks. Trust Bank of Algeria seemed to experience a long project but its legacy systems were finally due to be switched off in March 2010, with a parallel run having started a month or so earlier. At around the same time, Industrial Development Bank of Egypt (IDBE) also opted for Banks. The project was part of a four year IT strategy to modernise the bank. ICS was working with local partner, Giza Systems, on the implementation. The system was to be rolled out across IDBE’s 14 national branches and was scheduled for completion by the end of 2007. Within an RFP-based selection, ICS competed with I-flex (now Oracle FSS), Infosys, and Temenos. Moetassem Bellah Kaddah, IDBE board member and leader of its core replacement project, said factors considered were ‘the offering, plus the resources available, the implementation, the training, the follow-up and the cost. All these factors have to be viewed altogether.’ All four suppliers provided references, ‘but not all of them were successful references. On the contrary, some of them gave references that intimidated us’, he said, referring to the length of some of the core implementation projects in the country. ICS, meanwhile, gave a positive impression. A team from IDBE visited the vendor in Jordan, carrying out ‘quite extensive due diligence’. Over three to four days, ‘we went to their sites, and we saw their development facilities, their quality assurance procedures and two of their customers in Jordan’. As well as being impressed by ICS’s product and delivery, IDBE found a couple of other advantages that looked to mitigate the risk of being the first ICS customer in the country.


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