Bank M becomes first Tanzanian firm to migrate to 'cloud'

BY THE GUARDIAN REPORTER

Bank M Deputy CEO Jacqueline Woiso (R) is flanked by the bank's Head of ICT Vinesh Davda as she explains how the newly acquired Google Apps enhances operations during a press conference in Dsm.

Bank M has become Tanzania’s first bank to fully migrate to the cloud after adapting the Google Apps- a cloud-based productivity suite that allows one to connect and get work done from anywhere on any device.

Apart from a 99.9 percent up-time SLA (Service Level Agreement), Google Apps allows each user virtually unlimited storage, powerful spam filtering, BlackBerry and Outlook interoperability and is simple to setup, use and manage.

Commenting on the impact of the new system, Bank M deputy CEO Jacqueline Woiso said they are extremely delighted to acquire the new system which will further heighten service quality and delivery.

“We are proud to be the first bank in Tanzania to fully migrate to the cloud, this is a great achievement as now our customer will enjoy even more enhanced security with highest quality in service standards,” she said.

She said that the bank has always been a champion in acquiring latest technologies and that has consistently been one of the reasons behind its performance in service standards and delivery.

“Since day one of our operation, we have always believed in investing in the best and the latest in technology. This has been our firm belief and we will continue investing in high-tech with the same objective of giving our customers highest levels of security with unmatched quality of service and its delivery,” she said.

Bank M Head of ICT Vinesh Davda said the decision to migrate away from old email platform is primarily to solve some of the common issues that come with rapid business expansion.

He cited an example of mailbox limitations, disk capacity limits and backup maintenance as challenges overcome by the new system.

“We have decided to move to Google Apps because of the guaranteed uptime, high security, low operating costs, and the opportunity for better collaboration among our employees” said Vinesh adding "with Google Apps, all your work is automatically saved in the cloud. You'll have access to your email, calendar, documents and sites and be able to work securely, no matter where you are in the world and what device you're on.”

He said that Google has implemented a multi-layered security process protocol designed to help keep customer data safe and processes have been independently verified in a successful third-party SAS 70 Type II audit to verify confidentiality, integrity and availability of clients’ data.

In addition to the various security controls that Google has put in place to help protect the security and privacy of customer data, Google Apps also provides several additional security options that can be utilised by a customer’s domain administrators like 2 Step verification, Single Sign-On (SSO), Password Length and Strength and Administrator-based Single Sign-Out, it said.

Apart from being technologically superior, Google Apps is powered by Google's energy-efficient data centres, so it uses less energy and it is carbon-intensive than on-premise servers.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN