News
Azentio Software Appraised at Maturity Level 5 of CMMI V2.0 Model
Azentio Software, a financial technology company with a strong presence across APAC, Middle East and Africa, is pleased to announce that its Middle East Banking Division has been appraised at Level 5, the highest maturity level of the CMMI Institute’s Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)® for New Product Release and Implementation.
This appraisal has put Azentio Software Middle East in a very selective global list of high-performing organizations having successfully achieved the highest maturity level of CMMI V2.0 model. This thorough assessment has been carried out by Software Quality Center LLC., a premier ISACA partner.
CMMI is a capability improvement approach that provides organizations with best practices that ultimately improve their key capabilities and performance. An appraisal at Maturity Level 5 indicates the organization is performing at an “optimizing” level.
At this level, an organization continually improves its processes based on a quantitative as well as qualitative understanding of its business objectives and performance needs. The organization uses a quantitative approach to understand the variation inherent in processes and the causes of process outcomes.
This distinction reinforces Azentio’s role as a trusted information technology solutions provider for clients in banking, financial and insurance services, and adds to its successful attainment of ISO/IEC 27001:2013 milestone for establishing robust Information Security Management System and ISO 9001:2015 for Quality Management Systems.
Commenting on the news, Mohammed Kateeb, Global Head of Islamic Banking and President, Middle East & Africa at Azentio and Appraisal Sponsor, said, “The CMMI Level 5 rating is a strategic milestone in our journey to become the preferred IT partner of forward-thinking organizations.
“Achieving the highest maturity level of the new CMMI V2.0 model for New Product Release and Implementation of our Banking Division is an affirmation of the company’s absolute commitment to quality processes and excellence, and competence to continuously evolve, adapt and grow to meet the complex needs of its clients, while delivering business value.
“Our commitment to quality is one of our core values aimed at driving innovation, efficiencies and ensuring we embed best practices in everything we do.”
Kris Puthucode, Certified CMMI High Maturity Lead Appraiser at Software Quality Center, said, “The team at Azentio Software Middle East are passionate about improving processes to deliver best-in-class products as well as elevated implementation services to their clients.
“Being a niche and an award-winning market leader in their area of expertise in the financial sector, using the CMMI models for more than a decade now, has enabled superior standard of deliverables, and with the additional rigor of CMMI V2.0 and high maturity concepts, Azentio’s team will be able to use advanced statistical methods to predict several key parameters on projects and products.
“This Maturity Level 5 appraisal further reinforces their commitment to client satisfaction and defect-free delivery. It has been a pleasure working with them.”
Azentio Software Middle East is proud to be the 47th company to be appraised at CMMI Development V2.0 (CMMI-DEV) with Supplier Agreement Management (SAM) Maturity Level 5 of the total 10,569 appraisals done worldwide, helping the company to optimize performance by focusing on improving product quality, productivity, and client delight.
News
Mutual Benefits Decries Low Insurance Penetration, Seeks Policy Changes
Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc has decried the low insurance penetration in the country, calling for policy changes to increase insurance uptake by Nigerians.
Mr. Femi Asenuga, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Mutual Benefits, who made the call at a workshop for insurance journalists, advocated for media support in ensuring policy changes, shaping public understanding of insurance and deepening insurance penetration in Nigeria.
While emphasizing the important role of the media in educating the insuring public on how insurance contributes to economic resilience, he said the ability of insurance journalists to communicate the complexities of insurance in a relatable and impactful way is vital in building public trust and confidence in the industry as well as encouraging more people to embrace insurance.
Asenuga said: “We are far from where we are supposed to be as a country. Nigeria with a population of over 200 million and as the giant of Africa should not only be in theory. As the press, you have a major role to play in changing the narrative of insurance penetration in the country.
The change is not only expected at the consumer level but also at policy making because that is where everything starts from.”
In her presentation “The Role of Insurance in National Development,” Head, Technical Department, Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc., Mrs. Titilayo Akinsiku, highlighted some of the roles insurance plays in national development.
They include, according to her, Risk Mitigation and Financial Stability; Business Continuity and Resilience; Social Welfare and Inclusivity; Risk Management and Sustainable Development as well as Investment and Capital Formation.
News
Thabo Mbeki Tells African leaders to Emulate Relationship Between Nigerian and South African Musicians
Thabo Mbeki, former President of South Africa has advised current African presidents to emulate the impressive relationship between Nigeria and South African musicians.
Mbeki said the African artists have managed to forge a formidable relationship and strong collaborative strategies which has seen them popularise both countries’ entertainment sectors and create wealth for the industry’s participants but the political leaders in Africa are locked in baseless egocentrism and territorialism which prevents generation of wealth amongst African countries.
Mbeki said before now that Africa used to be feared due to a strong pan-Africanism consciousness among leaders and deliberate policy formulations directed towards giving it a force of power.
He, however, regretted that today’s leaders lack such political will, are more Eurocentric and lack clear direction on how Africa should remain a liberated continent.
“Political will to manage diversity is central to the survival of all of the African states because there’s no African state which is not characterized by the diversity of its population now,” Mbeki said at his Thabo Mbeki Foundation premises, Johannesburg while hosting the third cohort of the MTN-MIP Fellows
“And so if you want to keep a continent or a country together, there’s got to be a conscious political decision. There is one outstanding example in this regard – Tanzania.
“When Tanzania was known as Tanganyika, there were two very important decisions under Julius Nyerere to keep the whole country together. One of them was to have one central language.
“Nyerere decided that everybody must speak Swahili and abandon tribal or regional languages. So, everybody speaks Swahili. The second decision was the abolition of the institution of chieftaincy ship. So there’s no chief of this tribe or that tribe.
“These were conscious decisions taken by the political leadership. They wanted to build one nation out of the Tanganyikans, and it’s worked.
“So, because the people of Tanzania have gotten used to being one, even some few years back when some political people, in Tanzania, started resurrecting this matter about tribal identity in order to advance their own political futures, the consciousness one united Tanzania, was strong enough to defeat them.
“So, that’s why I’m saying it’s a political decision here. South Africa is very fortunate in that respect, because you know, the diamond mines, which were first discovered in the 19th century, attracted people from Southern Africa, from as far as Angola among others to South Africa.
“Then a bit later, gold mining came and domestically, there was a lot of movement of people, and social economic development.
“Recall that at the formation of the African National Congress in 1912, one of its principal slogans was to bury the demon of tribalism.
“So since the beginning of the 20th century, you’ve had a political organization whose task was to make sure that all of this algorithm come together so that you see you got to a point before liberation here, if you said in 1960 to the African community here, wherever you are in the country, you say, who’s your national leader? They would say Alberto.
“So, what has happened on the continent is a regression from the kind of pan-Africanist commitment that we had with other earlier leaders on the continent, and the weakening of that resolve has negative consequences like the frosty relationship between South Africa and Nigeria.
“Another is the poor Visa regulation which has made it very difficult for cross border trade.
“And now addressing the challenge is to address the larger political problems. The point is always being made about the relationship between the artists, Nigerian, South African artists, and what they are able to do,” he added.
News
World Bank says 40% Nigerian MSMEs are Owned by Women
A report by the World Bank has established that 40 per cent of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria are owned by women, with most of the businesses growing at a remarkable rate.
In the World Bank latest report released on Wednesday, the global bank, through its Nigeria Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi), partnership with the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) and two commercial banks in Nigeria – Access Bank and Sterling Bank, established development of innovative credit solutions that expanded access to finance for women entrepreneurs.
The report summarizes key lessons, which include initial diagnostic; an assessment of demand for business loans; analysis of SMEs who applied to and/or received Access Bank cash flow loans, and administrative data from Access Bank’s cashflow loan programme.
“Our objective is to provide insights into the successes and challenges of disbursing loans to women-led SMEs (WSMEs) in Nigeria.
This research is being conducted in partnership with the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), which is also carrying out an impact evaluation that will capture how cashflow-based lending impacts male- vs female-led firms’ access to credit and business performance,” the report added.
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