Amos Emmanuel, chief software architect, Programos Software Limited, is a seasoned IT practitioner. His company is a leading indigenous software firm, a founding member of the Nigerian Software Development Initiative (NSDI).

Emmanuel has spearheaded the development the self-selling household capital market operations software use in over 100 stockbroking firms in Nigeria.

He spoke to Chike Onwuegbuchi and Emeka okafor.

Impact of IT on Stock broking

Before now, operation in the Nigerian Stock Exchange was typically manual, very cumbersome practice. Most accountants do very Herculean processes before they can get a whole day transaction through and with intervention and of course with the Integra development software the accountants rarely have duties to do more because we have used IT to almost take over most of these processes thereby creating the time for them to relax, not that we have used the software to take over their jobs but we have succeeded in taking redundant processes off their hands and make them to see the actual areas of their processes so that they can go home on time. That is one of the reasons why in the last 10 years Nigerian capital market has actually improved a lot more and became much deepened, in that they now can see a lot more to do than those that probably just conform with those that really require much time on them and that is why most of them are thinking of operating an online setting. Thinking of operating an online setting means that they are now able to bring all their remote business territories together. With software, they are able to operate in diverse business territories across and outside the country. And all these processes are plugged to one embassy and they are operating as one single corporate entity and this is made possible by IT. So before now you have branches that don’t even know what the head office is doing so you have a disconnect but with IT, you are able to bring all these branch expansions together and they are able to expand because they are sure they can expand in control not expanding in fears . Before now, when you record fraud once in any of your branches and record another, you wouldn’t want to continue and you will feel like closing down the business but now most of the dealers need more branches because you can’t actually be proud of branch you can’t control but through the help of a software product Nigerian brokers from time to time achieve this with safe and protected environment.

Online Forex Stock Broking

The online dealing is not forex as in foreign exchange and currency trading per se. The online framework for capital market has to do with the possibility of a typical investor being able to place his mandate or wanting to buy or sell an investment via the internet and also enabling the investor to view his account with the dealer and see the statement of account. As well as to know what the balance is and of course being able to do portfolio evaluation to know how his cost of investment has been over a period of time and what it could be in present time which will help him determine if his investment is gaining or losing .These are the kind of information anywhere in the world that investors want to know about their investment not just that they sold or bought and nobody monitors or provide information. But now, even the customer has the capability of getting the information at will which does not require him to visit a stock broker.

The broker is now able to offer transparent service to his customer. In view of fraud, he wouldn’t even want to think online in the first place. That is actually one of the ways this product has been able to create transparency and of course build in the trust that people need in the market before they can actually put their investment.

Strength of locally Made Software in investment space

Nigerians have a way of underestimating the capacity in Nigeria. I must say that the Nigerian software development capacity is great and in fact great to the extent that even foreign countries wish to know what we are doing and are even looking for what level of collaboration they can have among Nigerian developers.

Our problem in Nigeria is mainly exposure but we know what we are looking out for and with the kind of system design we put in place it will take a foreign option time to compete with it because they may not really understand what we are doing. It could be very difficult for a foreign option to come to Nigeria and want to play and bring their product alongside our own. Those foreign options don’t have support and capacity. They don’t have local content. Local content in our professional tradition and that is partly one of the reasons I think in Nigeria Programmos is a software with a local content. We actually have to go with what Nigerians require, what our official requirements and traditions are, and we build by those standards. If you are a foreign competitor you need to come down at that level to ensure that you also provide what I suits our system locally.

Success Development Academy Initiative

I personally don’t learn because there is an examination somewhere ahead of time but I have a project that requires development to accomplish. I am into pensions insurance; I am into science, medicine and so many other things just because I need to deliver a solution. So as an IT person that is total and versatile, you need to be everywhere because you are an application. IT in itself is a tool and that tool must be applied and to be applied you need the right tool of the profession on your palm. So, the idea of training has to do with linking people to the standard. The tools of software and computer are to be used in business process of what they do on daily basis. To make optimal use of the software one need to know and understand their work and when they are doing their work software will not do any magic or pre-empt what you think. Education is very important as people are made to do what they are supposed to do. Education is critical to us and one of the products Programmos also sells is that we do not joke with education.

In fact we run free management training for university graduates from the universities and we train them. Training improves the manpower development of companies. We also train on the executive level. We have training for the accountants, operations people, marketing people, customer service and quality improvement people.

Patronage of the investment software

The product is actually what creates the patronage. If we introduce a product into the market we don’t care what the financial sectors do. If they like, they can go back to foreign option. We have our counterparts doing a similar thing but there’s need for you to ensure that the product has high quality. One of the problems we have as indigenous developers is lack of exposure and that is why sometimes we implore government to try and see how they could come to the aid of some of these entrepreneurs and see how exposure can be achieved. Government should sponsor indigenous practitioners anytime they want to trips outside of the country for exposure. Take for example sometime in 2003, when some software developers took time to visit the Silicon Valley in California, U.S.A. It was a great exposure and I will say that trip actually helped a great number of us because by the time we came back to this country we were able to find our footing, discover ourselves and we were able to know how to project our businesses in a manner a typical American will see us and there is something better now than what we were doing before.

Application against Online Crime

As a programmer and as a software developer, I have online solution; crime to a certain point is in my design and development. The treat around the solution is where we start from. In talking about security the principal thing you need is acceptability, integrity, availability and confidentiality. If any of these factors is missing the security is grounded. On cyber matters or any other form of security question the same rules apply. If you have various scenarios of abuse of the system, it is not technology that has abused that system or that is not working but it is actually the given framework that has distorted the security. It is in light of this that things like ATM cards are affected. One of the factors of security is availability meaning that information that is meant for A should not be disclosed for B but one way or the B is in possession of the information. It is security that has been beaten and not the fault of the technology. The corruption in the society has a major impact and not the technology itself. In fighting crime there has to be a convergence of physical and IT security.

Programmos Software and Financial Sector

Programmos software of course as you know is the pioneer software development company and we are solely responsible for printing customized software products for peculiar interests. Programmos has particularly created a niche around itself in the Nigerian capital market. The ICT automation of the Nigerian capital market dates back to as far as 1997. As the automation of the Nigerian capital market started, there was the introduction of the Canadian design. The Canadian content was introduced but we have to by that design provide a local software product that was tailored after that Canadian product and in the manner that a dealer in the Nigerian Stock Exchange would be able to use. Programmos relates with the licensed dealers of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and not the Nigerian Stock Exchange itself. And we have over 200 of these licensed dealers and over the years made this product available to them and it has made their automation a lot more easier because some of these processes could be cumbersome but with our software we have been able to make it possible for them to operate and of course much more secured in terms of being able to control their processes and trying to operate in a manner compliant with what the rules and regulation of the regulatory authority say. So as a software company we can say that our software has done very well in that area of the Nigerian financial system to at least ensure that the capital market operations are simply protected through indigenous product like our Integra development software.