some quotes : "We are a branch-less bank," said Mwangi at a function held at their Equity Bank Centre offices to announce the results. “This means that all the bank’s branches are linked to each other on a Wide Area Network (WAN) and that all transactions are carried out on the bank’s networks. With this, customers can perform banking transactions from any branch other than their own branch.” Equity's ICT infrastructure include a core banking software that is capable of holding upto 35 million accounts compared to the current 4 million accounts it holds. Equity also has a 65 million way 4 card switch, and as a security measure has implemented the EMV standard on their cards ensuring that all transactions carried out by their cards require PIN authentication. Mwangi stated that the bank had also partnered heavily with other telecommunication companies to tap into telecommunication products and services to enhance their banking services. Such partnerships included one that sees Safaricom Mpesa customers being able to perform withdrawals via Equity Bank counters and ATMs. Most Mpesa customers that use Equity are those transacting amounts greater than Kshs 15,000 (US$187) who usually face difficulties as most agents deal with smaller amounts due to Mpesa float restrictions. The bank handles 2500 Mpesa transactions per day and earns an average of Kshs. 50 - Kshs 60 (US$0.62-$0.75) per such transaction. The bank also recently launched a product known as the Equity Mkesho account in partnership with Safaricom's Mpesa that links Mpesa to a bank account. Since it was launched two months ago, Mkesho has ben growing at 20, 000 accounts per day to the current figure of about 400,000 accounts. Mwangi said that he expects the number to keep up at the pace as the registrations so far have been done at Equity without the help of Mpesa agents who will be offering Mkesho registrations soon. At the moment, Equity allows merchants across the country to accept payments using Equity ATM cards. So far 3,000 merchants have implemented the system. In future technological developments, the bank is looking at using agents thus allowing customers to withdraw money from retail outlets such as shops. This would be a further addition to their branchless network and would see 4000 such outlets rolled out. The agents have already been licensed by the Central Bank of Kenya and are undergoing training. Mwangi also announced that the bank would allow consumers to borrow loans through their mobile phones starting September 2010. The devolution of retail banking away from the branches would enable Equity Bank to use its current staff to focus on Small & Medium Enterprises(SMEs) Banking. Technology supporting the bank include a WAN that sees branches have three redundant links with fiber as the primary link failing over microwave links and VSAT as the last link. The bank operates four data centres including a new Kshs 6 billion (US$75,000,000) Tier 4 data centre at Equity Centre. Tier 4 is the highest classification for a data centre guaranteeing maximum availability and redundancy. Equity has also put together a competent ICT team led by Allan Waititu and John Staley. The two said that the bank was commited towards ICT security and had put stringent measures towards this. Other than a network security demilitarisation zone, the bank has set up a high lever of risk awareness and as result was yet to loose any money in SWIFT bank transfers despite most banks losing millions in the same process. http://www.cio.co.ke/index.php/view-all-main-stories/1373-equity-bank-posts-...