Iniabasi Akpan, is the managing director of SoftWorks Limited, software technology solutions company. SoftWorks was carved out of iTECO (Nigeria) Limted, a company owned and managed by highly qualified professional engineers and specialists with several years of training and experience both in Nigeria and abroad. Akpan has 19 years experience in the ICT industry and has worked in the many institutions. He spoke to chike onwuegbuchi and funmi ilesanmi

SoftWorks e-Payment Solutions
I would say we are a nitch player in the market currently. We focus on e-payment which is one of the areas we play; we offer smart office solutions and also look into business transactions.
We also install Automated Teller Machine (ATM) hardware as well as provide services and support around hardware which includes applications.
Fraud in the System
One thing we must understand about chip and pin is that it has added security feature which makes it difficult to clone ATM cards and protect it against the use of such cards for any transaction. It is not easy to scheme. So, it prevents someone from actually producing one because of the added security feature.
More so, looking at the rate of scheming today, magnetic stripe always has issues with scheming, so people can clone the card and use it. That is one of the distinguishing factors between magnetic stripe and chip and pin cards.
Deploying Deposit ATM Cards
We are currently in talks with a couple of banks and also looking at opportunities to deploy such models of ATMs.
Deposit ATMs can improve efficiency, such that someone can go to the bank over the weekend and make a deposit of his cheque. Do not forget that depositing a cheque involves quite a number of processes, those processes have to be part of the entire solution of deploying a cheque deposit or cash deposit ATM. These are the issues that need to be address, it is not just the hardware but the processes associated. What happens after someone makes a deposit of a cheque? Normally at the counter you have to post it into a banking system; now that cheque has to go through an alternate process when taken in through a machine. There are still processes to be sorted out before you can consider deploying one.
Normally there are human interventions, now you are saying a machine should take the place of humans. You can deploy cheque deposits in two models, either through a completely automated process, which means you will require the service of an expert to complete the entire process knowing that when you receive a cheque, it still has to go through a clearing system. For now, I think what is most acceptable is to receive the image of that particular cheque. Today, we still need the physical copy of the cheque for clearing process to be completed, maybe a bank can receive a cheque within its own bank through the machine, but if it’s interbank it might be a bit more complex. You can go through a completely automated process if it is intra-bank cheque. But, for inter-bank it would take a longer time because the infrastructure is yet to be put in place.
Virtualization and Efficiency of Enterprise Management
Virtualization is just a broad term, which means to improve portability, manageability and compatibility. I think that efficiency is what virtualization is trying to achieve for computing resources. Narrowing it down to applications, it makes hosting applications effectively on a foreign or an incompatible hardware that makes it possible to roll out those applications.
From a more central perspective, I can have fewer servers, consolidate all applications on a server and get people to access them.
Virtualization in the Telecom Industry
The telcos rely a lot on their infrastructure and managing the infrastructure is difficult. The best thing is to virtualize the applications that people have to access remotely in order to make it more efficient even for management purposes.
Relationship with Swift
We are the only service partner with Swift and has been together for nine years. Swift means Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, they provide financial messaging platform for interbank correspondent. If you need to do a transfer in foreign or local currency, it is a platform to make transfers. A number of banks have their own infrastructure but every bank is a member of Swift because it is more like a cooperative, owned by banks. It is a platform of messaging for correspondent banks to credit accounts.
SoftWorks Service Bureau
Our service bureau provides service base model for banks which is like the Swift gateway for members of Swift to connect and send messages to one another. We are basically connected to the Swift network and have people who want to reduce cost and alternatively want to use it as a disaster recovery system. Institutions leverage on our infrastructure to accomplish this, because looking at the path of upgrade, managing the infrastructure is expensive so sharing makes it easy for everyone.
Unified Communications
Unified communication is bringing together the various communications channels to improve the productivity of the office worker. It means streamlining communications channels such as emails, fax, phones, voice and video. Communication has to be managed over these separate channels for it not to have a negative impact on productivity.
What should be done is to integrate all the PCs together in such a way that a person is more effective. You can send a fax to me and I receive it in my email even if you left a voicemail on my phone, I can get it on my email. That makes it possible to work securely anywhere, anytime with ease.
In the area of reducing cost, if you take the various relevant solutions for unified communications, I would say it reduces the cost of traveling and training because if I can conference with people across the country, that reduces my cost rather than people traveling by air to venue of a meeting.
Quality of Connectivity   
Times are changing, in the past it would have been difficult but now there are several options to get connected. It is not only on the internet, it is also about integrated system. We need to have the right knowledge, the right capability and the right partner to work with to implement unified communications wholistically. There are various channels and a specialist at voice and may not be specialized in other aspects.
Encouraging the Use Other e-Payment Channels
People carry cash as a back up plan because they are not sure what the encounter would be with the system. If the systems are reliable, people would be more comfortable using it. So it is about reliability and providing additional services and solutions on those touch points, these are the things that thrives usage.
Improved reliability of the systems
To a degree, it is more related to network connectivity because managing offsite is a bit more difficult than managing onsite. If you are to put touch points offsite, you need to have the appropriate system to support it. Getting to an offsite location is more difficult unlike when it is within the branch where you can easily access it to resolve problems. When a site is offsite, you need a good managing system to know where the devices are and what the state of those devices are, which is a part of improving reliability.
Challenges of using Indigenous Banking Applications
I would say it is a slim chance for now. Most banks want tried and tested systems because banking is about service. You would not like the system to break down or having issues especially when you are serving your customers. Banks naturally flow with tried and tested systems rather than gambling, for now I think it will take several years for it to happen. We still need to play a catch-up on best practices and standards.
It will take several years to build robust software that will erase the current challenges faced by banks today. I am sure India did not start yesterday, to be practical, if it does happen it will take several years.
SoftWorks Smart Office Solution
SoftWorks smart office solution improves the productivity of the average office worker. Today, people not only want to work in a smart way, they want to work with ease and minimal supervision. The fact is that to make this possible, you need to have the appropriate solutions. You have to prevent security breaches because breaches affect productivity. If a virus attack someone’s network the whole system is shut down resulting in down time. Some of the components of our smart office solution enhances the productivity of the office worker in a way that down time is reduced, security breaches are minimized, eradicate abuse and unknown system usage.
Imagine the tons of time that is lost to surfing on CNN in a whole day rendering the office worker unproductive. It is not that surfing on CNN is bad but when the whole day is lost to browsing. We want to make it possible for people to work with ease any day, anywhere, anytime.
Subscribing to Smart Office Solution
It is a solution that is implemented according to the need of the customer, so it has to be tailored to the customer’s specific needs. We ask a few pointed questions which determine how the solution will be implemented.