Steve Njenga CIO of Barclays on the bank’s IT journey

Barclays has operated in Kenya for over one hundred years, and for 2017 the bank is focused on using technology to achieve efficiency, going digital, and delivering top-notch services to its customers.

In an interview with CIO East Africa, Mr. Steve Njenga, CIO of Barclays Kenya, reiterated on the bank’s strategy saying that to archive the stated objectives, the focus is on people, processes, and technology. Sentiments to which his colleague in the bank Mr. Vincent Nzai, Head of Processing Hubs agrees.

Coming from an American corporate system to the Kenyan corporate system, Steve Njenga joined Barclays Bank in 2015 and believes one of the reasons he was brought on board was to help address the bank’s system stability issues. Since his arrival at the bank, there has been a tremendous change.

Services and Initiatives

To get started, Mr. Njenga says the focus was on ensuring a stable core banking system. This has largely been achieved in the last 24 months. Ensuring system stability for the bank’s customers is a journey and continues to be a critical aspect of Business as Usual (BAU). The mission for 2017 and beyond is to transform the business into an efficient, digital and customer led organisation. Barclays is investing heavily in the digital strategy to drive process efficiency in order to provide all who interact with Barclays a world-class experience.  To achieve its goals, the bank is taking steps to ensure all team members are on the same page and work together.

“We are also currently looking at ways of digitising customers’ inputs and instructions, and Robotics is helping with the automation process,” said Mr. Vincent Nzai.

Cloud

The cloud is still a new concept for banks in Kenya yet from a customer perspective, the cloud provides an opportunity to access services around the clock.

“We need to be in the cloud. Virtualization is key in order to take full advantage of the cloud. A virtualised core banking system ensures that banking services are reliable 24/7 and that services are recoverable in a matter of seconds in case of a failure,” Mr. Njenga stated.

“The cloud gives a lot of leverage, especially when it comes to testing and delivering services, with an emphasis on speed to market – a cloud implementation allows you to build quickly, test quickly and launch to the market quickly. Most big banks today have huge development and test environments replicating their production systems. All these duplicate systems are costing them lots of capital. Maintaining them poses challenges in terms of how to get quicker and more efficient,” echoed Mr. Nzai.

Digital Workplace Transformation

Transformation into a digital and efficient organisation is a key pillar for Barclays. And part of their agenda is to eliminate paper, starting from audits all the way to paperless visitor management which would be unique to Barclays.

“In September last year, we launched an online meetings and appointments scheduler. Our customers can now schedule appointments online with any of our specialists. You no longer need to physically come to our branches to have a face-to-face, online meeting with a specialist at the branch. You don’t have to drive all the way to Haile Selassie to engage in an appointment with the bank,” said Mr. Nzai.

Barclays’ is also keen on leveraging digital technology for business mobility and continuity to ensure that work is done whether or not the employees are in the office. This gives our employees the freedom to work from wherever they need to be, whether that is from home, a customer’s office, a branch or during their commute.

Security

On security, Mr Njenga stated that he felt the bank is pretty secure since the bank is able to leverage on the security measures set up by the Barclays Group.

“The concerns I have are related to the integrated business place. Now that we are all [businesses] becoming more and more integrated, it is no longer just Barclays and partners operating separately. We now have systems that link all of us together. If one of your neighbours has a breach in their security, you could get impacted. It is more of an industry-wide kind of concern that I am just now starting to feel, but I am not sleepless yet,” said Mr. Njenga.

“The overall cyber security situation in Kenya is not the best. But for Barclays – so far, so good. In my professional opinion, the Kenyan environment is not as secure as it should be. That poses a threat to all businesses and not just banks, a threat to everybody who is part of the system,” he added.

Blockchain Technology

Barclays Kenya is not doing much with blockchain technology due to the recent warnings from the Central Bank on the perceived insecurities of crypto-currencies.

Mr. Njenga was proud, however, of what the global team was doing on innovation. They have an accelerator program called “Barclays Rise” – a global community for open innovation, designed by Barclays to help shape the future and drive the bank’s growth. Through this initiative Barclays is creating a community in which start-ups, corporates and innovators can connect, co-create and scale the ideas that could become the next revolution in delivering new products and services to our customers, clients and colleagues. In each location, Rise will provide a physical site for innovative companies, offering a co-working environment, world-class event spaces, and meeting rooms. Rise brings together the world’s best and brightest start-ups and experts to create the future of financial services. The program is structured to nurture their growth in terms of funding, coaching and mentoring.

“We have one facility each in Cape Town, Tel Aviv, and London, with plans for two more elsewhere in Africa over the next 12-18 months. Barclays Rise also houses the Barclays Accelerator, an intensive 13-week programme designed to accelerate start-ups. The program has start-ups leveraging blockchain technology for financial services, however the technology can be leveraged in areas as diverse as management of land title. It’s in projects like these where you find innovations that you’ll soon see make their way into the marketplace in the near future,” said Mr. Njenga.

PesaLink

One of the new innovations coming out of the Kenyan financial services sector is PesaLink. It is a front-end switching system developed by Integrated Payment Systems Limited (IPSL), a company owned by the Kenya Bankers Association (KBA). PesaLink allows banks to link to each other’s systems and allow money transfer services to customers. According to Mr. Njenga, PesaLink has a huge potential if it is marketed and driven appropriately by KBA. He believes it could provide stiff competition for MPESA.

“Right now all they [PesaLink] have is the P2P (Person-to-Person) transactions. Imagine when they have the full package of B2B (Business-to-Business), B2P (Business-to-Person), or P2B (Person-to-Business) transactions. One of the things we talked about is the ability to do all those transactions online, for example leveraging PesaLink P2B the online Jumia shopping cart. My only hope is that they push and drive uptake – you need a critical mass for this kind of thing to work, but the potential is humongous,” he emphasised.

Advice to other CIOs

“My advice to other CIOs is to hang in there. This is a tough job but rewarding in many ways. I used to report to a CIO who was a good friend. When I accepted and took this job, he reminded me what CIO really means: “Career Is Over,” Mr. Njenga said breaking into a hearty laugh.

“This job is pretty demanding, and as a CIO you need to build good relationships with the people who matter and stay focused on the numbers. And, always remember that at the end of the day it is really the business that determines what you can actually do.

“You have to be good at making your case and demonstrating business value – that what you bring to the table adds value and positively impacts the customer, and that it is a differentiator in the market. You must be able to do that, and that takes some skill. It basically means you are going to bring ten things to the table and maybe only one will really stick. It will only stick because you kept driving, and driving, and driving. That’s why I am saying, ‘Hang in there!’ It is a tough job but just hang in there. It is almost a thankless job, but we do it because we love what we do,” Mr. Njenga concluded breaking into another emphatic laugh.