Barclays Bank Ghana Supports Growth

With Printronix Technology

With its rapidly growing customer base and expanding number of branches across the country, Barclays Bank is enjoying unprecedented success in Ghana. One reason for this growth is that the bank?s online services have proved to be a huge hit, making services more widely accessible than ever before.

With this success has come a surge in necessary reporting ? for both the bank?s customers and for the Bank of Ghana, the government-appointed supervising body. For several years Barclays used Tally printers in its Accra-based head office and treasury department for the volume printing of management and daily and monthly transaction reports. However, as the bank grew, the aging Tally printers could not keep pace with the increasing volume and variety of reports required. And they were noisy.

Barclays contacted the printing systems specialist Reiss & Co. in February 2003 to help overhaul the printing network. Among the requirements: a printer that could print up to 1000 lines per minute ? and do so quietly. The bank also wanted to install and maintain the printers itself, meaning that the solution chosen would need to offer operational simplicity and parts that could be easily sourced. The final requirement was that the solution be reasonably priced and offer a compelling return on investment.

After careful consideration of the options and guidance from Reiss & Co., Barclays decided that Printronix met all of its requirements. It installed two test printers at the head office, and for one year monitored performance against the set criteria, including software compatibility tests.

Following the successful completion of the tests, the printers were formally connected to the bank?s network, which consists of Fujitsu-Siemens servers and PCs linked by Cat5e UTP cables, 3COM and Cisco switches, and satellite.

Since implementation, Barclays has noticed a significant increase in productivity.

?The difference in performance using Printronix has been dramatic,? said Bertha Dadson, manager of Barclays? IT service management. ?Downtime has been nil and the printers themselves do everything we wanted. They?re quieter, faster and far more flexible than what we had before.?