The bars of competition in the Nigerian banking industry has once again been raised as First City Monument Bank Plc (FCMB) successfully deploys a novel and highly revolutionary Central Processing Centre (CPC), aimed at further enhancing service efficiency and delivery across its entire branch network nationwide. This has further highlighted the bank’s commitment to a culture of excellence.

The Central Processing Center is a production platform for processing all transactions for which the customer does not require an immediate output or direct contact with the processors. It is the first of its kind in Africa and entirely unique to FCMB in the sense that no other bank in the global market has similar platform.

The deployment of CPC aims at moving all back office processes and practices out of the brick and mortal channels to promote efficiency, increase customer satisfaction and turn branches into “showrooms”, says FCMB Vice-President and Divisional Head of Operations, Nath Ude.

He explained that with the deployment of CPC, initial contacts for all transactions for which the customer does not require an immediate output or direct contact with the processors (which is about 25% of the entire transaction) is carried out at the branch, while maintenances on customers’ accounts and transaction processing on products is done back-end via an interface mechanism on a workflow engine and the banking application.

Anurag Saxena, FCMB’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) said the successful deployment of CPC has resulted in the “reduction of paperwork, less distractions and drastic reduction in errors, effective control model, better TAT (Turn Around Time) on processes and transactions, and reduced work induced stress on staff.”

This is a complete reversal of the old order, where processes were more cumbersome and staff across our network had to work long hours to process transactions. The COO noted.

FCMB Head of CPC – Shared Services Group, Kayode Adigun said the bank’s CPC technology was borne out of ideas context amongst staff in collaboration with our technical partners; exploring various technologies and process initiatives from different world class banks and financial institutions resulting in a better process work flow.

Beyond helping to improve service efficiency and customer satisfaction, it is anticipated that the new technology deployment would also attract better rating for the bank by international standards, increase profitability, and efficient management of resources.