ActivEdge Tech Implements SmartStream Solution in Zenith Bank

ActivEdge technologies has successfully implemented SmartStream’s Corona TLM Reconciliation solution in Zenith Bank of Nigeria Plc.

The bank’s objective for adopting this solution includes elimination of manual errors, secure timely completion of transaction, centralise all reconciliation process in one single system, focus more on exceptions management and operational risk, and attain high processing efficiency.

George Agu, chief executive officer of ActivEdge Technologies, distributor and local implementation partners of SmartStream observed that at this crucial time when banks are working with lower margin, more regulatory pressure and high complexity; there is high demand for efficiency in back office operations.

Mr. Richard Okafor, project manager of Zenith Bank, observed that everyone wants to be part of a success and went further to thank the team from ActivEdge Technologies, SmartStream and his colleague for the extra effort that they have put in to achieve such a great result starting from day one.

‘The bank has always been ahead of the pack in Nigeria and with this whole reconciliation process now automated, we are now going to focus on growing our business and providing unmatched services to our customers since the load of back office operation has become minimal.

He commended the ActivEdge Technologies team in particular for being very professional in meeting the deadline set for go live on this project.

SmartStream Technologies has over 40% market share in the entire reconciliation market space globally providing Reconciliation, Exceptions Management, GL Substantiation, Cash and Liquidity Management, Corporate Event Action Management, Transaction Fee and Invoice Management to over 2000 corporate for the last 40 years.

The process of selecting SmartStream’s TLM Corona was very rigorous and had to be done in multiple stages with some weak vendors pulling out because of tough operational processing and transaction types that had to be reconciled through the system.

This allowed SmartStream to emerge as the best solution because they met all the evaluation criteria in terms of matching rate, automated exceptions and investigation, dashboard reporting, and automatic issue escalation according to well defined workflow.

With this successful implementation, Zenith Bank has now joined the league of over 2000 leading banks globally who are users of CORONA TLM Reconciliation and Exceptions Management Solution.

The solution from SmartStream covers a complete lifecycle of Transaction and is able to support multiple cycles of matching of ATM/POS and other switch based transaction in real time ensuring that customers who have challenges like ATM dispense errors can have their cash immediately corrected in no time.

There was a lot of excitement at the bank when the first day of productive use of the system showed more than 98% matching rate, a testament to the fact that the solution has a very robust reconciliation engine that can take away the pains of manual or semi manual transaction reconciliation challenges of the bank.

Another very important feature of the system which the bank is benefiting from is its ability to automate the investigation and exceptions management process.

No longer will reconciliation be done at the branches as the system has the ability to pick unmatched items and distribute these items to branches automatically creating an automated investigation process for each transaction.

Based on this very positive development, all reconciliation process has now been automated so, the bank will only focus on using as little as just 5 staff globally to manage exceptions raised by the system based on its automotive investigation engine.