GUARANTEE Trust Bank (GTBank) customers are to express service disruptions for three days – starting Friday, October 11 to Monday, October 14, as the bank migrates to a new banking application.
The bank disclosed this in a notice on Wednesday, October 9.
According to the bank, it is migrating to Finacle Core Banking Application Systems and is expected to complete the migration by Monday.
All GTBank branches nationwide are expected to shut down early to customers at noon on Friday and reopen at 9:00 a.m. on Monday.
The migration will cause a digital banking services shutdown for 11 hours, from 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 13 to 9:00 a.m. on Monday.
The bank said customers would perform limited transactions via its digital channels, including transfers, bill payments, airtime and data purchases, while other services would be unavailable.
“Overall, this transition will allow us to drive digital transformation to achieve insights-driven and frictionless interactions at all our customer touchpoints; enhancing the quality of customer experience we can deliver to you.
“We will keep you updated on our progress as we work towards making your banking experience simpler,” the notice read.
The bank apologises for every inconvenience the migration might cause, urging customers to show understanding.
The ICIR reports that most Nigerian banks are switching to new core banking platforms, supposedly to enhance their service delivery, which usually results in banking services disruption.
In September, customers of Sterling Bank expressed service disruption when it started the migration of its systems from T24 to SEABaaS, a new custom-built core banking application locally developed.
Similarly, customers of Zenith Bank had a harrowing experience of a service outage on October 1, which the bank said was “due to an information technology upgrade.”
Experts believe that migrating to a new core banking application is tedious and takes a while for any bank to stabilise after the migration.
At the parent company’s Facts Behind the Offer Presentation in July, the group chief executive officer of Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc (GTCO), Segun Agbaje, had hinted at the bank’s plan to migrate its core banking software to Finacle.
“The technology needs to be better, the technology needs to be more robust. We have Finacle which is a good software that will land us where we need to go,” he said.