First Bank of Nigeria, FBN, has put its customers on notice of a system upgrade slated for Thursday, 26 October.
The notice came as customers of Guaranty Trust Bank, GTCo, continued to reel from disruptions to the bank’s services over two weeks after carrying out a similar upgrade.
FBN, in a notice released on Wednesday and sighted by Naija Daily News on Thursday, revealed that it was migrating to a new cloud-based procurement and financial platform as part of its ongoing strategy to improve operational efficiency and service delivery.
The migration, scheduled to begin on Saturday, October 26, is expected to result in temporary service disruptions, the bank, which boasts a customer base of 42 million, said.
The Nigerian banking sector has already experienced severe service disruption in the last couple of months, leading to unfounded speculation that the sector is facing imminent distress and collapse.
It should be recalled that customers of Zenith Bank Plc, Sterling and GTCo have all faced similar challenges in the last few months.
Since September, at least four major banks in the country have switched their core banking applications, including tier-1 lenders such as Zenith Bank and Guaranty Trust Bank.
FBN, in the notice, said,, “As part of the bank’s continuous investments to improve operational efficiencies and service experience, we will be transitioning from our current procurement and financial platforms to a new cloud-based platform that provides additional capabilities and benefits.
“During the cut-over period, certain activities and transactions will need to be suspended to aid housecleaning and safe migration of transactions with minimal disruption.
“The cut-over period will be from Saturday, October 26, 2024, to Sunday, November 3, 2024, while the new cloud-based solution will be live on Monday, November 4, 2024, and normal activities will resume,” the bank stated.
