Telecom Egypt (TE) will provide Al-Ahli Bank with information network updating services in 121 branches nationwide, according to TE chief executive Mohamed El Nawawy. El Nawawy added that the update process would be executed in one year, while technical assistance would last five years. El Nawawy emphasised that fiberoptics used by the company will allow the bank to promote its services to high speeds of up to 10GB/s, with data transfer speeds through fiberoptics reaching 300,000 KB/s. In a press conference earlier this week, Al-Ahli Bank chairman Hisham Okasha said the agreement signed with TE will secure the banks' branches electronically and ease the process of electronic archiving, while also increasing ATM-driven financial transactions, which require very high speeds for data transfer services. Okasha highlighted the importance of ATMs, saying transactions through them amounted to EGP 5bn per year, which requires speedy execution of the transactions and securing the clients who exceed 4.5 million. He added that the bank intends to provide further services to its clients, through inserting several banking and security packages as well as geographical expansion of branches and communication channels. Tamer Gadallah, head of the business operations unit in TE, mentioned that his company will be responsible for providing the network's entire infrastructure, in addition to securing all information and banking data at high speeds and providing the service's necessary technical assistance. The company seeks to provide secure systems at competitive prices for institutions and companies, he added. Ihab El-Wazan, the Head of Information Technology department in Al-Ahli Bank, said that clients now depend on speedy and electronically-based services, which had led to pumping huge investments into infrastructure and telecommunications to provide a maximum level of service. Al-Ahly Bank operates 350 branches serving 3.5 million clients.
