MTN Provides Wide Area Network Solution to CBN, FCMB

Nigeria’s telecommunications operator, MTN, has signed a deal with Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and First City Monument Bank plc (FCMB) for the provision of Wide Area Network (WAN) solutions, links to eight branches of the apex bank and 18 branches of FCMB plc have been fully commissioned. This marks the successful completion of the first phase of the project, which was completed within schedule.
The WAN solutions will improve the quality and speed of the data network within CBN and FCMB branches thus enhancing their service delivery to customers across the country. 
According to Derek Appiah, MTN’s chief enterprise solutions officer, banks in Nigeria today yearn for reliable and dependable services from their technology partners in order to deliver basic services to their customers. Our goal is to be that one-stop technology partner that our customers can rely on. We aim for partnerships that go beyond just providing solutions that work today, but also consider the impact of future expansion, costs and convergence.
Olayinka Oni, chief information officer of FCMB said that though the solution is in its early days, the experience of the first few weeks on the new platform has been remarkable.  “We have experienced increased reliability and quality of service at the pilot locations; indeed it has started to improve the work-life balance of our colleagues at those locations as they are able to achieve tremendously quick turn-around time for all transaction processing which we expect has also started to impact on customer experience and satisfaction at those locations.  With this platform, we hope to achieve better and enriched convergence of data and voice for capabilities like video conferencing, voice conferencing, virtual meeting, and unified messaging,” he said.
It would be recalled that MTN has built in excess of 5,000 base stations in Nigeria, and its over 5,000 kilometer fibre optics backbone is the largest private infrastructure of its kind in Africa.  The company is poised to consolidate its vision to become the leading ICT provider by offering superior ancillary products and services.
MTN Enterprise Solution is the division of MTN Nigeria charged with the responsibility of providing a comprehensive range of ICT products, services and solutions that will better serve the increasingly sophisticated needs of today’s businesses from small and medium scale enterprises (SME) to large corporate and government establishments.