Standard Bank of South Africa reports from Nigeria that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has acknowledged that the round of consolidation that led to the emergence of 25 large banks has posed a number of challenges for the reduced number of banks, including integration of people, processes and systems. The central bank is seeking legislative change to facilitate progress on these issues. It also wants to complete the liquidation of fourteen failed banks, and start training banks’ directors and staff.
The central bank has set an example by trimming its own workforce from 10,003 in 1999 to 4,836 in 2006, and reducing the number of departments from 23 to 17. It has also invested in new technology, an Electronic Financial Analysis and Surveillance System (eFASS); the Temenos T24 Core Banking Software; a Real time Gross Settlement (RTGS) System; Enterprise Resource Planning (Oracle ERP) and an Enterprise Management and Security (EMS) system.