The Abaubakar Suleiman-led commercial bank’s system upgrade which started on August 30, has left many of its customers stranded, as they could neither withdraw nor send money from the various electronic platforms.
According to the details obtained from the bank’s website, there are over 3 million customers on its online platforms whose funds have now become trapped in the current melee of system failure.
Some customers who have registered their anger on the various social media platforms, such as Facebook, Google, X among others said they have never been frustrated.
Techcabal, says the problem started following the decision of the bank to migrate to SEABaas, a new custom-built core banking application recently built for the commercial bank by a local Nigerian firm.
The lender had previously been using Temenos T24, the software used by the Central bank of Nigeria, CBN, and other commercial banks but decided to switch to the new system.
The decision to onboard SEABaas, analysts claimed is not unconnected with the bank’s effort to minimise cost, thereby resulting in a situation where hapless customers are now being made to pay a steep price.
“I can’t even begin to talk about the damage sterling bank has caused my business this week alone and it’s even crazier that I just migrated to the bank after having enough of Unity bank’s madness. Unity bank with all their excesses, never went this far,”Okeoghene@yo_twist wrote on the bank X handle.
“Your network is down in a very costly way,”Tolulope ajayi @teemman14 said.
“You are not serving anyone,” Huey T.H.C @elprodigy22 said in his response to the system failure, adding that Sterling Bank has “fucked up a lot of business transaction since Monday.”
Opeyemi Akinrimisi Amosu said “Just upgrade my account that was affected by your so called upgrade and let me mover my money, I am done with your bank!”
The angry customers said the bank did not provide specifics while sending out notification of the possible operation disruptions due to the system migration.
“A core banking application is a critical tool for all financial institutions, so an upgrade of this nature is a big deal,” said a software expert at a Nigerian bank who asked not to be named.
SEABaaS, a product by Bazara Tech Inc., a Nigerian software company, sources said, was built to Sterling Bank’s specification, and is meant to provide a seamless banking experience for its teeming customers.
“SEABaaS is a future-proof, platform-agnostic core banking SaaS solution designed to elevate user experience for enterprise customers. Its architecture features microservices, APIs, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud. It also spans a unified 360-degree customer view, AI and machine Learning capabilities, and intuitive user interfaces,” the tech firm said on its website.
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