LAGOS, (Sundiata Post) – The federal government is to save over N15.27 billion ($50 million) annually if it ceases paying maintenance fees and usage of foreign cheque solution as national and banking institutions clearing infrastructure.
Managing director/CEO of Precise Financial Systems, Yele Okeremi, the intellectual property owner of iTeller solution, a 360-degree suite of cheque capture, truncation, clearing, and processing, said this at the formal presentation of the solution in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
He said that having a local solution would give Nigeria the bragging right of owning an excellent indigenous “national cheque clearing platform that would become a foreign exchange earner”. He added that at least the 20 banks would spend about $1.2 million on cheque clearing solution per annum while the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would spend about $2.5 million per annum.
‘That is over $50 million per annum for the industry”, he said. He admonished the regulatory body not to relent on its cashless initiative, as it is already yielding laudable results in the payment space. According to him, not only would this solution save the country foreign exchange, the benefits to the banks are multi-dimensional.
He listed some of these to include the decongestion of the banking halls, as customers would not need to go into banking halls for cheque deposits. The solution eliminates the counter teller’s back-office cheque processing activities, which releases the tellers for more other duties.
“Every bank that is running iTeller is instant cheque clearing and T+0 cheque clearing cycle ready. Every cheque truncated on iTeller is clearing ready, as both front and back images, MICR details, and UV features are truncated at the same instance”, he said.
With the solution, he said, bank customers now have various options to deposit their drawn cheques at their convenience such as mobile, kiosk, teller’s counter-top scanner and remote scanner capture. “This saves bank customers in transport costs and time of commuting to the banks for cheque deposits as well as faster deposit time. There would be no more queues while waiting to deposit cheque”.
He said the solution has been tested in Nigerian market with great successes at all the clients’ sites including the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). He informed that the solution was developed by PFS in conjunction with its foreign German partner that provided the components that enables iTeller to fulfill its core functionalities.
“The solution has no down side concerning internet connectivity to any satellite applications. The performance of the general internet connectivity infrastructure at a client’s site is what determines the connectivity of iTeller”, he explained.
