The state owned, Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), had a financial opening for the shortlisted three companies for the supply and installation of 400 Automated Teller Machines (ATM), while cancelling a tender for the 2,000 Point of Sales (PoS).
The Bank announced the tender in August 2014 by inviting IT solution providers for the supply of ATMs and PoS. Five IT vendors responded for the supply of ATMs and seven for the PoS machines. The Bank selected three companies for the supply of ATM two weeks ago and canceled the PoS tender last week saying none of the bidders pass the technical evaluation.
A three month long technical evaluation led to CBE picking the Lebanon-based IT vendor, Computer Business Machines (CBM), Moti Engineering Plc, a local IT dealer, and Wincor Nixdorf International GmbH, a German banking equipment manufacturer, for the supply of the ATMs, according to Ephrem Mekuria, communication head at the Bank.
“But we cancelled the PoS tender because none qualified technically,’’ said Ephrem.
The bidders were notified of the cancellation the same day as the financial opening for the ATMs. Moti had the highest score in the technical evaluation for the ATMs, followed by CBM and Wincor.
The financial opening that was held on Tuesday December 31, 2014, however, showed that CBM had offered the least price of close to 82 million Br for the 400 ATMs. Moti followed offering 100,000 Br more, according to sources.
CBM and Moti offered Diebold and NCR brands respectively, while Wincor came with the Wincor brand.
“They told us that they need more technologically advanced machines, which suit the current network infrastructure such as the machines that work with Wi-Fi and third generation (3G), unlike the previous ones we supply which works with Local Area Network (LAN),” said a participant of the tender.
CBM won a tender for the supply of 200 ATM for CBE with 51 million Br in September 2014. It has also supplied 50 ATM machines for the Bank of Abyssinia (BoA) a year ago, 100 for Awash International Bank (AIB), 50 for United Bank (UB), 60 for Premium Solution System (PSS), and 35 for Dashen Bank.
On the other hand the local IT solution provider and a local partner of M2M, a Morocco based company, Moti, has supplied 650 ATMs for the CBE, 70 for Wegagen Bank, 70 for Dashen Bank, 59 for Zemen Bank, 10 for Abay International Bank (AIB) and four for Berhan International Bank (BIB). Moti also supplied 25 ATMs to the Corporative Bank of Oromia (CBO), 10 for the Oromia International Bank (OIB) and 50 ATMs to Nib International Bank (NIB). Wincor operates in Ethiopia through a local partner, SS Communications (SSC), a company that is working with the CBE for the installation of 4,000 PoS since September 2014, a 39 million Br project.
The CBE, established back in 1942, currently has 830 branches across the country, and operates 433 functional ATMs and 244 PoS, for its seven million account holders as of June 2014. The current round tender is part of the Bank’s plan of deploying 800 ATMs and 10,000 PoS machines by the end of the current fiscal year of 2014/15.
The winning company for the supply and installation of the ATMs will be announced soon, following an evaluation which gives 70pc for the technical and 30pc for the financial offers. The CBE will also announce another tender for the 2,000 PoS machines soon, says Ephrem.
