Banks uninstall pirated MS Office; send their employees back to manual math

Most employees will have access only to the core banking software for basic services, while top officials will be able to use Microsoft Office for communication and documentation. Representation Pic

In direct contrast to the PM's vision of Digital India, the nation's banks are doing away with the most basic technology used at the workplace - Microsoft Office. Bank of India and Saraswat Bank have started to uninstall all the tools (MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint).

Sources said the decision to do away with Microsoft Office is a bid to reduce licensing costs across bank branches. However, it remains to be seen whether doing away with MS Excel will end up reducing excellence at your local bank branch. While both Bank Of India (BOI) and Saraswat Cooperative Bank are in the process of uninstalling the software from most of the terminals across branches and at the headquarters, a select few officials will continue to have access to the entire suite of MS tools. This includes bank managers, their deputies and other key executives.

An internal notification issued by the Bank Of India's IT department (this paper has a copy), states, 'All branches and zonal offices should provide compliance for installation/usage of the Microsoft Standard Office Version strictly as per policy. And uninstallation of all excessive usage of Microsoft Office needs to be removed from all desktops in branches, zonal offices by April 13, 2018.'

The bank has already missed this deadline. On Tuesday, many branches in suburban Mumbai were in the process of removing the entire suite of MS tools. BOI has hired an IT company to complete the work.

Impact on work
An officer in charge of a BOI branch in Navi Mumbai said, 'I have 16 computers in my branch that had Microsoft Office. Now, as per the new policy, only three of them will have MS tools. The software has been deleted from the remaining 13 machines, as well as laptops provided by the bank.'

'Other than the branch manager, we have now given licensed MS tools to three departments - credit department, administration and government business. All other terminals are without MS Office,' he added. The BOI branch manager pointed out, 'The cashier would earlier use MS Excel to do his calculations after the disbursement of cash over the course of a day. Now, he has to use a calculator, which takes more time. A few other employees have started either coming to work one hour early, or staying back for an hour, so they can access a terminal with MS tools.'

He added, 'We have been also advised to download open source office tools for other terminals. We are not sure how secure this will be.'

Cutting corners?
An industry insider working closely with the IT departments of various banks said, 'It is slowly and gradually seen that Microsoft conducts surprise audits of banks, and charge crores for unlicensed use of their tools.'

The licensing cost for MS Office is Rs 10,000 per computer per year - this can run into crores when one considers the number of terminals at each branch. Experts have pointed out that using unauthorised open source software holds the risk of data leak or other cyber hazards. It is far better to use the internal core banking software to ensure that the data is secure.

Mum's the Word
BOI officials remained mum on whether this was a cost-cutting move. S R Meena, general manager (IT) at the BOI headquarters at BKC, tried to downplay the issue, stating, 'Some terminals at the branches had installed Microsoft Office in 2002-2003. It was neither upgraded nor used, but it was still accounted for during audits by Microsoft.'

When asked if the decision was taken due to the license cost, which has increased, Meena said only that this was an internal matter. He also denied that an external agency had been hired to uninstall the software from the bank's computers.

Dr Hemant Adarkar, the IT consultant who designed the core banking software for Saraswat bank told this paper, 'It is a good move. Only three to four core areas of banks communicate with external parties or need to make documents using MS tools. Remaining services use the core banking software.'

Dr Adarkar added that MS tools are often downloaded at branches without intimating the central IT department. Core banking software like RTGS and NEFT are also used at certain centres without proper licences in place, and this can create a problem for the banks during audit.

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