Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), a leading and most cost-efficient commercial bank in Nigeria, has apologized to customers for the seven-week service disruption that followed the migration of its core banking application in October. Customers had complained that they could not access their funds and that debit and credit notices were incorrect.
“Your patience and support during this recent transition to a new core banking system, has been nothing short of extraordinary,” the bank said in a statement on Wednesday. The bank also confirmed TechCabal’s earlier report that it had migrated to Finacle, Infosys’ core banking application.
This is the first time the bank has publicly apologized for the ongoing disruptions, which have caused significant frustration to its 32.8 million retail customers. Given the size of GTBank’s retail customer base and deposits (₦7 trillion), the disruptions meant many Nigerians were unable to access their funds or complete transactions.
“We were unable to access our funds for seven weeks. The banking app didn’t work at all, we had to use the web app, which was inconvenient,” GTBank customer Oyegbile told TechCabal.
GTBank did not immediately respond to a request for comment. GTBank selected Finacle as its new core banking application in the fourth quarter of 2023 after some of the bank’s top executives and technology team visited India to negotiate a direct partnership with Infosys, TechCabal previously reported.
Changes to core banking operations are important to improve banks’ service delivery, but service disruptions undermine banking’s fundamental promise of ensuring customers have access to their money when they need it.
