Bank of Africa subsidiaries in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will from now on use a new credit management system in a bid to curb losses that arise from defaulted loans.
Known as CreditQuest, the software is from Swiss-based banking and IT consulting firm SOFGEN and will enable the bank to have a centralised view of customer activities to enforce credit appraisal rules and processes, and to improve credit application turnaround time and monitoring.
It is also projected CreditQuest will enable Bank of Africa to reduce paperwork in its credit process and eliminate manual interventions.
“We evaluated different options and determined that CreditQuest best meets our requirements,” said Kwame Ahadzi, managing director, Bank of Africa, Kenya. “CreditQuest offers modules covering our entire portfolio of corporate, SME and retail lending processes. SOFGEN did an excellent job implementing CreditQuest at the bank and integrating it with our core system.”
Bank of Africa has acquired the system at a time when loan defaulting is on the rise among Kenyan banks, with the 2013 Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Annual Report stating non-performing loans increased over the last one year.
CreditQuest has now been successfully installed in over 10 banks in Sub-Saharan Africa and in over 200 banks across the world.
“Bank of Africa subsidiaries in East Africa are strategic accounts for SOFGEN as we continue our match towards becoming the preferred provider of IT solutions to banks in Africa” said Tunde Oladele, chief executive officer (CEO) of SOFGEN Africa.
“We intend to deepen our relationship with Bank of Africa to assure that the benefits of the bank’s investment in CreditQuest are realised.”
