GTBank announced a core banking migration on October 11, 2024.
The plan was to transition to Finacle over a weekend. Close branches early on Friday. Reopen Monday morning. 11 hours of digital downtime.
Clean. Simple. Communicated in advance.
Then Monday came.
The system was not ready.
Customers could not transfer money. Could not receive money. Could not open the app. ATMs were misbehaving.
Transfers were failing but accounts were being debited anyway.
One customer sent โฆ10,000 on two occasions. Failed both times. Debited โฆ20,000. No reversal for 11 days.
Another customer had a transfer fail then received the reversal as a transfer from a random personal account. Not from GTBank. From a stranger's account number.
A foodstuffs trader in Dopemu had been selling on credit for days because her customers with GTBank accounts could not pay her.
A 15-year GTBank customer tweeted that she was completely stranded no notification, no access, no money.
On X, Ezra Olubi, Paystack's own co-founder posted: "Funny how GTBank's online victory laps about the 'successful' core banking update is very much divorced from the reality of its customers."
The chaos ran for 10 days. Not 11 hours. Ten straight days.
Here is the lesson no one talks about honestly about Nigerian banking migrations:
The problem is not the technology.
Finacle is one of the most deployed core banking systems in the world.
The problem is the migration process itself.
Data synchronisation between old and new systems is the most dangerous moment in any migration. If transactions that were in-flight during the cutover are not handled correctly money disappears.
Accounts show wrong balances. Reversals come from wrong sources.
Any migration that goes wrong at a Nigerian bank does not just cause inconvenience.
It stops a trader from getting paid.
It delays someone's hospital bill.
It holds a salary hostage.
In Nigeria, banking downtime is not a technical inconvenience.
It is a human emergency.
Plan your migrations like it.
On our first date, some kids were chasing themselves. One of them ran and hid behind her chair.
She turned around, gave him a heavy knock, then continued eating.
Omo me and the pikin shock!๐ญ
In the light of all the recents confessions by married Nigerians allow me to repost a chapter from my book Be(com)ing Nigerian. How to show Nigerian love.
I want to be liquid to the point of reflex gifting.
Bro, I just called for that interview oh, fiam 50K data money.
Bro, I passed the exam. Fiam. 30K suya money.
Fam, I just bought a car. Fiam, take full the tank.
๐ ๐ gifting is such a sweet thing.