Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

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Our Customer

 Our customers worldwide have been constantly pushing us to deliver excellence. In 4 continents, be it Urban or Rural , they have been our driving force to innovate and Deliver

Our Product

Tigiverse , our product platform has evolved over the past 7 years . It has been effectively helping expanding the digital footprint for banks and FIs.

Our services

We serve with a Fanatic Zeal. We engage our customers both on remote and mission critical support .

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Delivering Values By Making An Impact

Zanaco, officially known as Zambia National Commercial Bank Plc, is a wellestablished commercial bank operating in Zambia. Serving a wide range of
clients, including retail customers, large corporations, agri-businesses, and the
public sector. Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Lusaka, Zanaco continues
to contribute to the country's financial landscape

Business Challenges

Zanaco previously relied on manual processes for reconciliation and expended significant time and resources on this task. Manual reconciliation processes are laborious, involving manual data entry and are susceptible to errors, resulting in diminished accuracy. These processes necessitate human intervention to rectify errors and necessitate manual generation of reports or checks for transaction status. Additionally, they lack real-time visibility, which hinders organizations' ability to monitor and address issues promptly. In anticipation of rapid growth and a rise in electronic transactions, Zanaco sought a comprehensive reconciliation services partner. This partnership aimed to encompass end-toend reconciliation of debit card transactions, reconciliation of cash-in ATM transactions, resolution of disputes, and provision of backend services for debit card issuance and merchant acquiring.

Implementation

The implementation covered the entire bank and required a moderate level of customisation to align with Zanaco's specific workflows. The implementation team encountered a significant challenge in migrating historical data from the Flexcube system to the new system. This challenge was effectively addressed by creating Oracle jobs. Overall, the implementation was a success and was completed within the scheduled three-month timeframe.

  • Electronic Channels
  • ATMs including deposit taking ATMs and Exceptions (Retracts, host
    transaction timeouts, cash dispenser etc.)Electricity
    (ZESCO)AirtelMTNZamtelPOS (Merchant and Agent)
  • Card Payments
  • VISA ReconciliationMasterCard ReconciliationFISP (Farmer Input Support
    Programme)
  • Domestic Payments
  • Clearing ElectronicFunds Transfer
  • Finance
  • Branch Submissions of GLs ATM GLsSubmissions from BranchesVAULT
    Submissions

Streamlined operations:

The implementation of a cutting-edge reconciliation platform with advanced automation capabilities eradicated the need for manual intervention, resulting in streamlined processes and enhanced operational efficiency

Increased productivity:

Automating reconciliation significantly reduces processing costs and subsequent audit cost. There are cost savings driven by reduced risk and improved monitoring.

Cost savings:

Automating reconciliation significantly reduces processing costs and subsequent audit cost. There are cost savings driven by reduced risk and improved monitoring.

Improved data accuracy:

Automating reconciliation removes the risk of human error, including data input inaccuracies, thereby providing a vital layer of control.

Enhanced regulatory compliance:

The automated solution enabled prompt reconciliation and precise reporting
of exceptions, thereby reducing risks and ensuring compliance.

Outcome

Streamlined operations:

The implementation of a cutting-edge reconciliation platform with advanced automation capabilities eradicated the need for manual intervention, resulting in streamlined processes and enhanced operational efficiency

Safe and Secure payment processing via an in-built wallet

Description

Digital Identity for Farmers

Description

Robust supply chain tracking dashboard

Description

Bidding Capability for fair trade negotiations

Description

Product Listing & Inventory Management facility

Description

Access to agri-insurance platform

Description

In-built Knowledge Centre

Description
Benefits of the key contributors

Behind every module is a sustainable plan for the ecosystem

  • - Lower costs to identify, acquire, and service smallholder farmers due to digital channels and tools that directly improve FSP profitability and expand the potential universe of economically viable clients
  • - A nominal 5% fee is charged on transactions taking place through the wallet
  • - Improved credit cycle for farmers

  • - Improved cost-efficiency and more targeted impact of government investment into agriculture
  • - Improved macro intelligence on agriculture sector trends, opportunities, and risks at national and sub-national levels allowing for improved planning, resource allocation and crisis management
  • - Scope of employment outside of rural areas but linked to the agriculture sector
  • - Better climate resilience through improved weather forecasts, advice on climate-smart agricultural practices, improved access to weather-adaptation inputs and weather index-based insurance

  • - Increased farmer demand for input products (increasing revenue)
  • - Improved cost-efficiency of input distribution due to digitally linked value supply chains and logistics optimization
  • - Transparent, traceable processes leading to quality assurance.
  • - Increased volume of high-quality products from smallholder farmers due to better practices and input use
  • - Improved quality and safety of food products coming out of smallholder value chains due to digital traceability and tracking tools and digitalized supply chain logistics

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Resources curated for you

Streamlined operations

The implementation of a cutting-edge reconciliation platform with advanced automation capabilities eradicated the need for manual intervention, resulting in streamlined processes and enhanced operational efficiency.

Increased productivity

Automating reconciliation significantly reduces processing costs and subsequent audit cost. There are cost savings driven by reduced risk and improved monitoring.

Cost savings

Automating reconciliation significantly reduces processing costs and subsequent audit cost. There are cost savings driven by reduced risk and improved monitoring.

Improved data accuracy

Automating reconciliation removes the risk of human error, including data input inaccuracies, thereby providing a vital layer of control.

Enhanced regulatory compliance

The automated solution enabled prompt reconciliation and precise reporting
of exceptions, thereby reducing risks and ensuring compliance.

Outcome

0 B
  • Transactions
  • reconciled annually
0 %
  • Betterment in
  • reconciliation time cycles
0 +
  • channels
0 +
  • Transaction types
  • reconciled
0 M+
  • Multi-currency transactions
  • reconciled annually

A popular choice

For the core banking system, the team was clear that it wanted a universal banking system with a modern service-oriented architecture and API connectivity. After evaluating a few vendors, the bank decided to select Oracle’s Flexcube core banking system mainly due to its stability and strong presence in the Zambian market.

Out of the 17 banks in Zambia, at least 11 banks were reportedly using Flexcube, which made it a popular choice for core banking systems in the market. The hardware, including the data centre, was also provided by Oracle. As an implementation partner, the bank chose Techurate, given its strong track record of implementations in Zambia and the presence of a local team in the country. The other factors that went in Techurate’s favour were that in addition to being a Flexcube core banking implementation specialist, the firm also offered a suite of digital channels solutions.

The ZICB team had significant pressure from the Central Bank to open the bank at the earliest opportunity in order to service the customers of the previous bank who were carried over into ZICB. The bank’s IT team involved Techurate right from the beginning in January 2018 when it started designing a detailed blueprint of the system requirements and architecture.

While Techurate was formally employed only in April 2018, this meticulous process of designing a detailed blueprint allowed the bank and Techurate to complete the implementation of the core banking system and make basic banking services available to the existing customers within just six weeks in May 2018. One of the other aspects that contributed to this rapid deployment was the out of the box implementation with minimal customisation and no major data migration activity. For the existing customers of the previous bank, only the end of day balances was carried forward into the new core banking system. Additionally, to minimise the cost, the low-value bank customers from the previous bank were migrated to an e-wallet platform, developed by Techurate, which could meet all the customers’ service requests while avoiding the costs associated with onboarding these customers to the core banking system.

Phased implementation

In parallel, the ZICB team and Techurate continued implementation of digital banking and agency banking modules in a phased manner. ZICB also engaged in a joint venture between Techurate and Probase, a local supplier specializing in collections solutions for statutory pensions, taxes and interbank payments. The solution provided by the joint venture strengthened ZICB’s solutions, offering online connectivity between the internal banking systems as well as with public servers such as the revenue services.

The modern digital banking system provided ZICB with integration capabilities to partner with various fintech companies and other entities like Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) providing money transfers. The bank’s strategy is to limit its branch network to nine branches, including its two existing branches, for the next five years.

Instead, the bank will focus more on the agency model. It already has a successful partnership with one of the biggest agencies in Zambia and is in advanced stages of integrating with direct selling agents for the distribution of its retail offerings.

For its corporate banking customers, the bank is in the process of partnering with one of the largest banks in the country where a ZICB customer may access ZICB services by walking into the partner bank branches. As aptly cited by Mwangala Muyoyeta, the Head of IT at ZICB, technology plays “a pivotal role” in the success of these strategic initiatives for the bank.