Standard Bank, Africa’s biggest lender by assets, says its engineering officer has resigned after systems outages in recent months left customers unable to use many of the bank’s services.
The bank’s systems challenges come amid its efforts to evolve into a multifaceted digital financial services platform serving clients across Africa.
Alpheus Mangale, the group’s chief engineering officer and senior executive accountable for the stability of its IT systems, resigned with immediate effect, Standard Bank said on Friday. Standard Bank’s most recent systems outage was on May 21, when for more than six hours customers could not pay for transactions at point of sales devices or draw cash.
The bank blamed this on the failure of a component responsible for processing card and ATM transactions and switching them from external devices into the bank’s internal systems. It said in a statement that the systems crash was not related to three other “high-impact” incidents in recent months, which it blamed on a software bug.
“Since the major outage on May 21 2022, our priority has been to stabilise our systems, ensure that services to our clients are fully restored, investigate and remove the causes of these outages, and demonstrate to our clients and colleagues that we are moving quickly and decisively to rebuild confidence in our systems,” said Standard Bank.
According to Mangale’s LinkedIn profile, he joined Standard Bank in September 2017 as the group’s chief information officer after almost three years at MTN, where he was chief enterprise officer. His role at Standard Bank was changed to chief engineering officer in January 2021 as part of a group-wide revision of its operating model.
Mangale also worked for Cisco Systems from 2012 to 2014 and spent more than 11 years in various roles at Dimension Data Middle East and Africa. He has a national diploma in computer systems engineering from the Tshwane University of Technology, a postgraduate certificate in management from Henley Business School and an advanced management programme certificate from Harvard Business School.
While it is not certain who will take Mangale’s place, Standard Bank said its engineering team would now report to Margaret Nienaber, the group’s CEO for client solutions. Nienaber joined Standard Bank in 2010 as head of private clients SA and was appointed global head of wealth and investment in 2013.
In 2017, she was named CEO of the bank’s wealth unit, a role that morphed into her present position in January when Standard Bank’s revised operating model came into effect.
“Margaret Nienaber has wide and deep executive experience in all aspects of financial services,” said Standard Bank.
The bank declined to answer questions from Business Day on Mangale’s departure and how much it spent on upgrading its IT systems in the past decade.
“There is no further communication beyond the released statement,” Nkosinathi Msiza, Standard Bank’s head of external communication, said by email.
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