Higher productivity, improved operational efficiency aimed at ****

FE Report Exim Bank Ltd has recently inaugurated a new state-of-the-art Data Centre at its Head Office at Gulshan in the city. The inauguration of the Data Centre is in line with the Bank's strategic expansion plans to provide world-class banking services with maximum security and also to ensure backup of all its day-to-day transactions. The bank has another such Datacentre (DR Site) in Dhanmondi, Dhaka which takes care of disaster recovery needs and prompt delivery services. The chairman of the new generation bank Mr. Md. Nazrul Islam Mazumder inaugurated the data centre. The event was attended by Vice Chairman Mr. Md Abdul Mannan, M.P, other members of the board of directors, Managing Director, Additional Managing Director, Deputy Managing Directors, Senior Executives of the Bank, Chairman and Managing Director of the vendor company Flora Limited. The purpose-built and scalable dedicated facility positions EXIM Bank as the country's most advanced bank to have a modern technology which is capable of providing a fault tolerant, dependable and interruption free operation. The Data Centre infrastructure is based on an integrated rack, power, cooling solution along with fire, smoke and water protection system complete with advanced management and monitoring hardware and software. The Data Centre is housed with CISCO networking devices, EMC data storage and high performance HP Itanium II servers. World renowned core banking solution TEMENOS T24 is running here along with other application software to cater the information needs of the bank. Best-of-breed database ORACLE with Real Application Cluster is used here. It will significantly improve overall reliability and accessibility. Mr. Md. Nazrul Islam Mazumder, who is also the Chairman of Bangladesh Association of Banks, said, "The business world is moving towards paperless organization to bring efficiency with the ultimate goal of boosting economy. For this reason, without automation no organizations can survive." With the successful implementation of the world renowned core banking solution TEMENOS T24 along with the addition of electronic alternate delivery channels, he expressed his deep satisfaction with this major achievement and hailed it as a milestone in positioning EXIM Bank as a leader in implementation of world class banking technology. The Managing Director Mr Kazi Masihur Rahman said, "The Bank is always willing to adopt the latest innovations and technologies that would help retain our clients' trust by improving our banking services." He also said, "EXIM is a customer-oriented bank and the Data Centre represents a major achievement in our strategy to leverage advanced technologies for the benefit of our customers and to position EXIM Bank for future growth in line with Bangladesh Bank's guidelines. "We now have a technology model that, going forward, will improve productivity, enhance reliability and help reduce the impact of the external environment on our operations. Ultimately it will help reduce operating cost of the bank. This will also have a positive impact on our customers through improved IT services, higher availability of banking channels and a reduction in the Bank's operating risks, keeping in mind that the Data Centre provides its services and support 247.," Mr Kazi Masihur said. "The inauguration of the Data Centre marks a significant positive step towards the promotion of trust among our growing customer base and increasing the efficiency and reliability of the services provided to them." Mr. Rahman emphasized on the fact that our banking industry is passing through a rapid transition process. In the coming days, no bank can ensure management dynamism, higher productivity, improved operational efficiency, enhanced shareholder value and regulator's compliance without a full blown IT infrastructure. Now that we have a broad-based backbone in place, we are planning to introduce customer-centric alternate delivery channels soon. The Head of IT of the bank Shamsur Rahman Chowdhury said, "In order to meet up the challenging strategic needs of our bank in this competitive business environment, we have tried our best to build up the best-of-breed ICT infrastructure with the help of the most advanced and reliable technology to ensure frictionless flow of information both inside and outside the bank in a most secured manner. This state-of-the-art infrastructure will sustain Exim Bank's technical requirements for the next 10 years with an integrated ability for future growth and IT transformation."