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Banks’ investments in foreign software unacceptable – Expert

By BusinessNews Staff on September 17, 2015

The Managing Director of UpperLink Software and e-Payment Solution Development Company, Mr. Segun Akano, says over indulgence of foreign software by Nigerian banks is negatively affecting the lenders’ finances and return on investments.

He stated that lenders in the country spent as much as N2bn on one software, while noting that some of them end up not giving maximum results.

Contrary to the belief in the financial sector, Akano said it was not true that foreign-developed software was superior to indigenous one in terms of quality and standard.

“Both foreign and indigenous software have equal standard and quality and most times, the locally-developed software addresses more of the indigenous challenges than the foreign software,” the managing director said.

He, therefore, called on Nigerians and multinational companies operating in Nigeria to make use of indigenous software, which, he said, “is cheaper, secure and easy to deploy.”

“There is just no need for the unnecessary status symbol,” Akano added.

He said the parameter for assessing the quality of any software, be it indigenous or foreign, depended largely on the benchmark of its certification, encouraging Nigerians to seek for software that have international standard and certification.

UpperLink had recently acquired international certification from the CMMI Institute, which appraised and certified UpperLink as Level III Certified Software Company.

Only two companies in Nigeria are currently Level III CSC certified. While Interswitch was certified on July 29, 2015, UpperLink was certified on August 4, 2015.

UpperLink, which got the registration of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number in 2014, and was tested by CMMI Institute on software engineering category and project management category before it became CMMI Level III certified.

Although there is another higher level of certification, which is the Level IV certification, Akano said that only Egypt, among African countries, had attained the certification.

“Another country that has attained the CMMI certification in Africa is South Africa, making it the third country in Africa to attain the CMMI certification. South Africa also has Level III certification,” he added.

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