Awash International Bank, Ethiopia has signed a 3.5 million US dollar agreement with British Misys International Banking 
Systems to upgrade the centralized, real time, online, electronic CORE banking system.
The bank floated a bid for the IT upgrade last August attracting a range of international companies including, Swiss Temenos Group, US Oracle Flext, Indian Infosys and Misys. Awash bank, which had previously had dealings with Misys when it installed its current system, decided to stick with the UK-based company.
The upgrade is expected to allow AIB to provide services to its 500,000 customers in finance, credit, human resources packages and Islamic banking. The technological upgrades also include anti-money laundering software.
The bid committee for Awash bank visited Dubai, Kenya, India, Tanzania, and Mauritius before making the selection of a vendor to upgrade its system.The technical evaluation was conducted over the last nine months before selecting Misys’ Bank Fusion 2.0 which is the 2011 version of the its CORE banking technology according to Tsehay Shiferaw President of Awash Bank.
Awash selected Misys for its better capacity for execution and because of the longstanding relationship with the company he said.
It is expected that the installation program will be finalized within nine months according to Elias Negassi, Deputy Manager of Management Information Systems with Awash.
Awash Bank was the first bank in Ethiopia to adopt CORE banking solutions.
Source: Addis Ababa
