In September 2024, Sterling Bank announced the launch of its core banking application (CBA), a novel move in the Nigerian traditional banking space.
One year after, Sterling revealed that its CBA, SeaBaaS by Peerless, has delivered $10 million in operational savings for its customers. The application has also processed more than 2 billion transactions within one year, an impressive milestone for a homegrown solution.
The system has recorded over 5 million end users via its APIs, and Peerless disclosed that companies running on SeaBaaS have experienced a 60% reduction in transaction processing time. SeaBaaS currently powers Sterling Bank, The Alternative Bank, and ARM Group.
Read More: Sterling Bank marks one year of zero downtime with SeaBaas – Businessday NG
Before switching to SeaBaaS, Sterling Bank relied on Temenos T24 (now called Temenos Transact). According to Abubakar Suleiman, Sterling Bank’s CEO, the bank had less than two weeks left on its expiring CBA license before taking the leap. He described the decision as the “single biggest bet” of his career, one that could have either secured or jeopardised the future of the institution.
Before this move, Sterling reportedly spent around N5 billion annually on renewing its Temenos license. The switch to SeaBaaS eliminated that recurring expense, underscoring the financial pressures Nigerian banks face in maintaining foreign-developed platforms.
Cost implications of foreign CBAs
Sterling’s gamble also highlights the broader cost burden of CBAs in Nigeria. In 2024, seven Nigerian banks collectively spent N325.2 billion on technology and IT, with a significant portion allocated to their core banking systems. GT Bank, for instance, spent N55.2 billion (~$36.7 million) migrating to Infosys’ Finacle in 2024. Access Holdings incurred an additional N18.1 billion upgrading its Oracle Flexcube v12.0.2 across 10 countries, bringing its total CBA license cost to about N226 billion for the year. First Holdco also reported N32.1 billion in additional license spending in 2024.
Technical challenge of core banking migration
Beyond cost, banks relying on foreign-developed CBAs face a range of structural limitations that SeaBaaS is designed to address.
These imported systems often lack the flexibility to adapt to local requirements, resulting in generic solutions that do not fully meet the needs of Nigerian customers. Because they depend on external support teams operating in different time zones, issue resolution is often delayed, hampering efficiency.
Updates and new features are dictated by foreign vendors, which may not align with local regulatory requirements or evolving market demands, thereby slowing innovation.
Integrating these systems with Nigeria’s financial infrastructure is often complex and time-consuming, which limits banks’ ability to collaborate with local technology providers. Beyond this, they frequently result in vendor lock-in, reducing institutional agility. Thus making it difficult for banks to switch providers or take advantage of emerging opportunities.
Samuel Eze, CEO of the embattled microfinance bank OurPass, has repeatedly attributed his institution’s struggles, including its inability to refund deposits, to persistent technical issues tied to its core banking migration.
In the broader core banking space, an oligopoly prevails, as observed by Jason Mikula, author of Banking as a Service. He argues that “the combination of the core banking oligopoly and bankers’ general aversion to risk has contributed to a lack of innovation.”
Peerless, developer of the SeaBaaS platform, presents its solution as a direct response to these long-standing shortcomings. The emergence of this Africa-built alternative is particularly significant, offering fresh possibilities for the wave of fintech startups taking shape across the continent.
Our platform is more agile – Peerless
According to Peerless, SeaBaaS enables delivery agility. Essentially, new products can be rolled out like software features, not through costly multi-year migrations. Long-lived integration projects are broken down into short, well-defined sprints. Its API-first design, event streams, and sandbox tooling shorten build cycles without creating new forms of vendor lock-in.
The platform is built on a composability-first, cloud-native, API-first architecture, making it inherently ready for the future. This foundation allows seamless integration with emerging technologies and supports rapid iteration. Peerless says the platform empowers financial institutions to pivot quickly and embrace new opportunities.
In a sector where trust is paramount, SeaBaaS is GAP compliant and fully aligned with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and global standards. Security is embedded into every layer of the platform, giving banks and their customers confidence that critical operations are protected.
SeaBaas in its second year
As it enters its second year, Sterling Bank notes that SeaBaas is focused on scale, delivering not just more customers, but more value per customer. Its ambitions extend beyond Nigeria. With a business presence already established in Dubai, the company is planning a regional and continental rollout, targeting West and East Africa as key growth markets.
SeaBaaS is engineered to serve multiple institutions concurrently without sacrificing reliability, throughput, or isolation. The company has set a target of onboarding at least 10 additional organisations in Year 2.
Peerless is also investing heavily in African talent, building capacity across multiple countries. By fostering a new generation of tech innovators, it hopes to strengthen the continent’s digital economy while reducing reliance on imported solutions.
Industry analysts say Sterling’s success with SeaBaaS could mark a turning point in Africa’s digital banking infrastructure. If reliable at scale, locally developed CBAs could reshape banks’ cost structures, encourage regional innovation, and ensure that billions of naira spent annually on foreign licenses remain within Africa.
For now, Sterling Bank’s bold bet is paying off. And with Peerless eyeing a pan-African rollout, SeaBaaS may not only redefine how Nigerian banks operate but also set the tone for the continent’s financial technology future.
