Women Bankers Excel In IT Applications

Women Bankers have made tremendous strides in the area of Information Technology applications. Sylvia Namusoke Genza is the Manager of Production Services, in the IT Department at Stanbic Bank Uganda. She has 20 years of experience at the Bank.

Sylvia holds a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science Degree, from Makerere University, Kampala. She in addition boasts of a wide range of experience in IT Banking, which has seen her become a member of the East African Women in Basic Sciences, the Project Girls 4 Girls, Uganda chapter, Uganda Women Mathematicians and Charter member of the Rotary e-club global Uganda.

She also holds a wide range of Professional and Academia Certifications. These include; Certified Professional Coach, ICF Uganda Chapter, Certificate in Servant leadership SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), Certified Practitioner ITIL 2011 Foundation and Certificate in flawless consulting skills among others.

In her role as Manager Production Services, in Stanbic Bank Uganda IT Department, Sylvia says she is responsible for ensuring the technology Infrastructure; on which the Bank services are run is operating within the acceptable service levels that allow the company to offer exceptional customer experience.

“The role also involves ensuring customer payment instructions and data are processed within the agreed turnaround time and its integrity is maintained”, she said. She stated as Manager IT Business Control, she is responsible for integrating and operationalizing disciplines from a financial, operational, control and governance perspective required to oversee and manage the budget for the department as well as operationalize composite workforce management and planning for IT services.

“As the Programme Manager, Core Banking Project, I am responsible for coordinating the implementation of the upgrade of the Bank’s core banking application, in addition to the smooth and efficient running of the Information Technology function in the bank and aligning it towards the achievement of the bank’s corporate vision, mission and values; and business strategies”, she added.

Sylvia highlights some of her achievements to include; participating in the bank’s strategic objectives formulation and supporting the achievement of the same, through technology. She says her contributions have led the IT team in delivering the core banking upgrade in 2012.

“In 2016, as a programme manager, I coordinated and together with the project team, delivered a successful upgrade of the core banking platform. As an electronic Banking supervisor, I managed the successful implementation of a new electronic banking platform within Stanbic Bank Uganda and the migration of electronic banking customers from an old electronic banking platform.”, she said.

She enumerates some of the challenges to include; having to, even if it is not stated or written anywhere, as a female, prove oneself as a leader in a male-dominated environment.

“In the Bank and especially, the IT department, cybercrime presents a challenge of the uncertainty of an operating environment as it is always evolving. This keeps you awake as a leader and gets you to think ahead of the curve from a Risk and Security perspective all the time”, she pointed out.

On the prospects, Sylvia says, “Regulatory requirements will evolve according to new threats and customer behaviour. This means Banks must be ready to evolve with the speed at which this is happening. The existence of fintechs as new competitors does not leave us without challenges”

Partnering with the fintechs to develop solutions that combine customer insights and digital technology to improve the customer experience is now unavoidable”, she said. She pointed out that leveraging big data and analytics together with new technologies will be key to improving customer experience. “With this, banks can stand a chance of building customer trust and loyalty thus building revenues that can guarantee success in the future”, she emphasized.