Kenya’s I&M Bank has selected Otoma’s AI-native, no-code payment hub to modernise its end-to-end payments technology, starting in Kenya.
Kenya-based I&M Bank, a Tier 1 commercial bank wholly owned by Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed I&M Group, has partnered with Otoma, a provider of AI-native, no-code payments infrastructure, to modernise its end-to-end payments technology. The new payment hub is intended to reduce failed and duplicate transactions, improve payment visibility, and speed up the resolution of transaction issues. It should also allow the bank to introduce new payment services faster, expand access to payment channels and networks, and simplify its payment operations.
Moving beyond legacy payment hubs
Jamie Loden, COO of I&M Bank, stated that the bank carried out a thorough review of the payments technology market with the aim of moving beyond legacy systems to a modern platform that can support its growth across Africa. According to Loden, by combining no-code capabilities with AI and automation, Otoma allows the bank to simplify how it builds, changes, and operates payment services, reduce the time needed to deliver new capabilities, and respond faster as markets and payment ecosystems change.
Otoma’s payment hub is designed for rapid deployment and continuous change, allowing banks to design, build, test, and deploy new payment capabilities in near real time while keeping more control over their payments infrastructure. Its no-code toolset includes a payments visualiser, continuous integrated testing, and data transformation between payment formats, aimed at reducing the time, cost, and complexity usually associated with payments transformation.
Group-wide ambitions in Africa
Peter Reynolds, CEO of Otoma, stated that the project will begin in Kenya, with potential to support I&M’s wider payments plans across the group as it grows in Africa. According to Reynolds, I&M has experienced the constraints of legacy payments technology, particularly the time, complexity, and cost of making changes, and Otoma aims to give banks the control to develop payment capabilities at their own pace without waiting on a vendor’s roadmap.
I&M Bank has more than five decades of banking history and offers corporate, business, and personal banking services. By choosing a no-code platform, the bank aims to bring more control over changes to its payment services in-house, rather than relying on a vendor’s development schedule as payment schemes and networks in its markets evolve.
