MKB Bank

Standardized product information handling at MKB Bank

A significant and universal financial institute of the Hungarian banking market has developed its product information database on Microsoft SQL 2005 platform

In order to further increase client satisfaction and decrease operating risks MKB Bank intended to standardize the handling of product information. The activity of the financial institution is supported by a complex infrastructure, and in this environment the employees must handle product information in several applications. Data redundancy and inconsistency, which is resulted from this, has been decreased significantly by the Bank through a product information database (hereinafter called TIA) and by the InfoPath forms which serve to key in data. This project also provided opportunity for standardizing processes, and hence it founded the grounds for further integration and automatization at MKB Bank.

The client

MKB Bank is a significant and universal financial institute of the Hungarian banking market. Considering the complete range of its products, the standard of its services and the intensity of its client relations MKB Bank Zrt. plays a leading class with regard to all segments of clients.

The Financial Institute has a traditionally strong market position in the business line of big companies and institutions, as well as in project financing. At the same time it is significantly reinforcing its presence in the segment of small-, and medium sized and retail companies, as well as, in the area of financial and capital market services.

The MKB Bank plays a bridge-head class in accomplishing the East-Central European strategy, which includes definite countries, and which belongs to its main owner, the Munich-centered BayernLB Group. Within this framework it fulfills the proprietary tasks of the Bulgarian MKB Unionbank and the Romanian MKB Romexterra Bank. Its called-up share is 13.567 million HUF.

A problem of businesses

Handling information which is necessary for the sales of the products is a great challenge for credit banks. The lack of standardized product records makes this task extremely difficult, as the data of each bank product can be reached in different approaches and with different contents in the various systems. Moreover, launching a new product or modifying an already existing one creates even more work to do. In this case, new product descriptions, contract templates, training materials and publicity materials for clients must be created and the list of conditions must be modified. Then these changes must be entered in all the relevant documents and they must be set forth again.

– Our activity is supported by a complex infrastructure and in order to provide a comprehensive service to our client, we need to handle the information about our products in several application – said Miklós Don, Managing Director responsible for bank development at MKB Bank Zrt. – However, we intended to decrease the data redundancy and the occasional inconsistency resulted from the manuality of the area. Therefore, by handling product information faster and more consistently we can increase our clients’ satisfaction further, and at the same time, we can decrease operational risks as well as provide greater support for the preparation of acqusition decisions.

The Solution

At this time, MKB Bank appealed to Microsoft for advice. The choice was obvious, since – as Miklós Don said – Microsoft had already carried out several successful introductions at the Financial Institute, both in the area of infrastructure and in application development; therefore, the cooperation was built on traditions.

– Moreover, Microsoft has the technology which makes it possible to build a flexible system development what we require – the development director pointed out. We were not searching a solution for a pattern problem, but we needed a system to support our operational model which we wish to automatize efficiently.

Professionals at Microsoft Consulting Services suggested a product information database which was created on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 platform (TIA) as a solution. Among all the MCS partners who took part in carrying out the project the greatest task fell on Info-Frame Solutions Kft. This company provided not only developers for the group of the project but business consultancy as well, securing fruitful communication between the business users of the bank and the developer information specialists.

– The prepared solution makes efficient and consistent information handling possible for MKB Bank. – said Brigitta Bertalan, senior consultant of Info-Frame said – The uniqueness of TIA is that it does not set uniform requirements for the description of all the products. Product managers can determine themselves what information they wish to key in and maintain in the system within a wide scope and by compulsory and optional parameter, still all the information can be searched for by complex viewpoints and with great efficiency. For the business side this easy manageability is provided by the forms which were prepared by the information specialists, and which contain models necessary for parametering products.

The Microsoft technologies which were chosen for the solution ensure the efficient work of the developers as well as the user-friendly handling of the prepared application.

– The .Net development platform, the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database handling and InfoPath, which is part of the Office System are suitable for developing TIA. – Illés Esztehás, Development Manager of Microsoft Hungary said. – by the help of InfoPath users can easily key in both the constant and the dynamic product parameters, which hence get suitable span and can be efficiently searched for in the application. The .NET environment, the Windows Communication Foundation, and the Visual Studio Team System, as well as the SQL Server 2005 provides- besides a well-known programming language - an environment where both the classs and the responsibilities are well defined. All these help the work of the developers to the highest degree.

MKB Bank uses the Dialogue application as a widget for preparing product documents, in which templates help producing individual product descriptions, regulations and data sheets in a large number. After the users have given the parameters in the data sheet of the TIA InfoPath by which a product can be described – for example an overdraft credit- and the product developers have produced the product by filling in the data sheet and entering factual conditions, the application turns to Dialogue, which prepares the documentation in the indicated way. Later these documents are published in the SharePoint Server based company portal of the Bank and, for the clients, in the website of the Financial Institute.

– This way the data base serves as a kind of data market – said Péter Renfer services executive responsible for MKB Bank at Microsoft – It makes possible not only producing or impersonating documents, but automatic polling and utilization as well through the relevant interfaces. Two front systems of MKB Bank are already using the TIA data service, hence ensuring automatic utilization of product data in business processes.

Results and observations

The project was carried out following the Microsoft Solutions Framework and the method of the Project Management Institute. These identify the work as a well defined process, which consisted of the stages of creating a concept, implementation and introduction.

– MKB Bank undertook a very significant and active class in putting demands in words, on the basis of which we created a picture of the future solution together – said Brigitta Vereczkei, project coordinator at Microsoft Hungary. – It was followed by the stage of planning, during which we also determined the possible technologies, scheduling, and deadline of the solution, taking into consideration the active participation of the banking product as well. Beside them, Emese Kovacs, advantaged expert of the Bank takes part in the work of the project team on a daily basis; therefore, ensures that such a solution is developed which later can be really efficiently used by the Financial Institute.

After approving the plans the development of TIA was carried out within 3 months. Following the testing of the code’s quality, in the phase of the introduction the Bank could test the application through the user interface. Users’ manuals were made at this time and the training for the users was done simultaneously as well.

– As a sponsor of the project I can state, that Microsoft and its subcontractor partners, as well as MKB Bank created such an integrated project team, in which everybody could work in a well defined class – Miklós Don evaluated the cooperation. – We also found a common language to reach this, so no circumstances hindered the work. Thanks to the excellent cooperation, testing finished with outstandingly good results in respect of data migration, business flow continuity and performance. We started the operation well prepared, according to the plans and scheduling, so launching TIA was very successful in April 2008.

Ferenc Bonifert, deputy head of department emphasized, that Microsoft and MKB Bank used different methods in their developments, but the two methods engaged smoothly to each other, and helped the work of the project team successfully. Therefore, the Bank had nothing to be surprised about neither at the beginning of the operation nor later.

– Following a method used at information technology projects we could create an outstandingly valuable solution from the business point of view, which is unique in the market – said Brigitta Vereczkei . – We provided the customer with what they expected with regard to both functionality and quality, and we carried out the project on schedule and within the budget.

– One of the greatest advantage of the TIA which puts the standardized handling of product information in practice is that with introducing it we worked out the possibility of centralized and integrated data storing – emphasized Miklós Don. – By this means, data consistency increased, our processes became better structured and internal sales receives more developed support, that is to say we could decrease operational risk. It is also important, that with this project we created chance for further automatization at MKB Bank. Last, but not least the consistent and efficient product information handling supports the preparations of the campaign and acquisition-related decisions more efficiently as well.

– TIA delivers exactly what we expected from –said Emese Kovács, head of department at MKB Bank. – Product data is transmitted in the documents thanks to the automatisms. Work is easier and more comfortable because there is less manual data keying with this system, which also provides more data consistency.

Future plans

Presently the product information database is connected to two front systems as well as to the most widely used product regulations’ document store within MKB Bank.

– We have further plans with TIA – said Miklós Don. – We are going to extend the system to our full product portfolio in two steps, and this work is already being done following the accepted schedule. No decision has been made about it yet, but we intend to create integration with the intranet portal and with the pricing system, moreover, we might even examine the possibility of working out a connection with the central account management system.