Once again, South Africa has taken centre stage showcasing technology that is forcing the global community to take notice. This time the tech is in the Banking sector where Nedbank presented their banking solution at the Global CIO Forum in Rome, Italy.
The Global CIO Forum is an exclusive and by-invite only event that is hosted by Accenture where only CIOs of major world corporations are invited to attend to discuss and unpack the major technology trends shaping various industries. Cloud, analytics, Big Data and mobility will have a major impact markets in the next three years and the CIO Forum allows the attendees to understand the challenges and opportunities that could prove to be a game-changer.
When Accenture sent their consultants to Nedbank they were so impressed with what Nedbank has achieved that they invited Glenn Smith, Nedbank’s Group Technology Divisional Executive: Mobile and Digital, Nedbank Limited, not only to attend the Global CIO Forum. Glenn was also given the honour of presenting Nedbank’s technological journey as a keynote speaker.
Glenn presented a highly engaging keynote that outlined the banking opportunities in South Africa and Africa, recalling how Nedbank has always identified trends and delivered solutions. Nedbank was the first bank to offer internet banking, the first major banking institution to recognise the power of TCPIP and the first to install Microsoft at the front end, replacing the old green/ orange screen terminals.
When the mobile app revolution hit Nedbank initially lagged behind, deciding to focus their attention on not just copying what everyone else is doing, but rather focusing on how to create a delivery mechanism to deliver solutions to mobile customers. Nedbank recognised that mobile apps are here to stay and so they focused all their attention on security first. Glenn recalls that “this is the one area that it can’t be ‘good enough’ but has to be perfect.”
Approve-it was born after Nedbank sourced its technology from a local South African company Entersekt. This technology has one single function – to allow the bank to know for a fact that the person they are dealing with on the other side of the mobile device is indeed the client. Approve-it gives Nedbank that ability as it has sophisticated (and confidential) methods to ensure that no information can be stolen or manipulated between the mobile device and the Nedbank system. Proving its effectiveness, since its inception in March 2012, there has been over 23 million transactions with the value exceeding R15 billion via the Nedbank App Suite with almost zero fraud. This is a remarkable feat in an industry rife with constant Phishing attacks where hackers try to steal people’s banking details and access their accounts.
Through Nedbank’s platform, they were able to deploy solutions to Android phones and tablets, iOS phone and tablets, BlackBerry phones including BlackBerry 10 and even feature phone app. All these deployments occurred in three month between 27 August 2012 and 23 November 2012.
Glenn’s keynote included in-depth discussions of their infrastructure and detailed learnings which were shared with the various CIOs who also got a sneak peek at Nedbank’s future plans. This is something that Glenn is not sharing with us just yet, ending with only a clue that “the next evolution of our system and Approve – it is truly amazing”
Source: The Techie Guy
