Core Banking Application in the ASP Model Gives Bank Strategic Edge, Reduces Costs

To compete in the fast-developing market of today and meet its customer expectations, the Egyptian Commercial Bank (ECB) moved from its legacy system to a new agile, scalable and secure system based on the latest in Microsoft technology and utilizing the in-depth knowledge and expertise of National Systems Research (NSR).

The solution, based on FNS Bancs24, enabled ECB to accelerate time-to- market of new banking products as well as offer clients new customized experience. The bank is now better able to identify and respond to market opportunities thus has increased its market share while achieving significant reduction in IT costs.

Situation

As part of its restructuring, Egyptian Commercial Bank (ECB) decided to overhaul the bank’s operations through the development of new products and services especially in the consumer/retail areas, as well as increasing responsiveness to customer needs and improvement of Service quality. Unfortunately, the bank’s legacy systems constituted a stumbling block to internal and business plans. The seventies era core application was GL centric, and hence did not match the recent developments in the banking industry that had long since moved to customer centric environments. Under the legacy system responding to market demands sometimes took as long as six months thereby causing the bank to miss valuable opportunities. Over years of modifications and patching up, the applications had become costly to maintain.

National Systems Research (NSR) has recognized the changing nature of the financial industry, and moved towards the delivery of mission critical IT services. NSR built a solution based on robust and highly available Microsoft components that combined speed of implementation with flexibility and expandability. It provided the staff user as well as the bank customer with an enhanced experience.

Strategic plan Oursourcing Solution

Traditionally, acquisition of core banking systems focuses solely on the functionality and performance of the applications the majority of which were based on either proprietary operating systems, or on UNIX. NSR took a radically different approach in building a banking environment based entirely on Microsoft .Net technology. This provided ECB with an integrated work environment that would improve productivity and enhance the work experience.

NSR developed a highly available, massively scalable architecture based on extensive surveying and Business Process reengineering. This Mission Critical platform is flexible and extensible and will allow the addition of future functionalities with ease.

NSR Banknetics® is a unique industry specific corporate information backbone. It gave ECB a web enabled corporate desktop from which staff could operate specialized banking systems as well as full use of personal productivity applications, email, personal work space for files, photographs and other media. Through the rich functionalities of SharePoint Server, Banknetics allows the creation of small ad hock workgroups which are a characteristic of dynamic fast growing organizations. In an environment that is heavily dependant on fast changing regulatory and corporate information, Banknetics provided ECB with a document repository and content aggregation tool that contributed significantly to the process of organizational transformation. Finally it gave the bank a participative forum for informal communication acting as a much needed glue to the newly formed organization.

NSR selected Great Plains® General Ledger (GL) application as the cornerstone the corporate accounting system at ECB, in response to the banks requirement to enhance financial control and extend cross departmental auditing and to support decision making. Great plains general ledger integrated seamlessly with the FNS core banking application and with other banking applications such as Treasury and Trade Finance.

Coupled with Extensive Business Process reengineering Great Plains General Ledger streamlined accounting procedure and shifted the accounting burden from the branches to a centralized function. This resulted in a substantial reduction of initial manual input and hence dedicated headcount. Finally it provided the financial management of the bank with a consistent focus of accounting information, and the ability to perform multidimensional analysis and default budgeting .

B@NCS-24 A Total Solution
FNS's core banking application - B@NCS-24 – was used to automate every aspect of a bank's operation. It was configured to meet ECB’s staff and customer needs in the areas of retail and corporate banking and MIS. B@NCS-24 system allows ECB to compete more effectively by providing support for effective processing of current products and services while allowing the institution to quickly respond to market demands by introduce and change products and services

B@NCS-24 Functional Components
The B@NCS-24 system is built using component business object techniques and provides support for common core banking functions such as:

• Customer Relationship Management
• Limits and Exposures
• Collateral Management
• Marketing Notification and Response
• Deposit processing
• Loans processing including:
• Loan Workflow Management
• Contingent Account processing
• Cash Accounting including:
• EFT Switch Management
• Debt Collection
• Remittance Reconciliation
• Correspondence Management
• Integrated Treasury
• Integrated Internet Banking system
• Integrated Branch Automation system

B@NCS Treasury
B@NCS Treasury It provides all Front, Middle and Back Office functions for Foreign Exchange, Money Market and Securities instruments in one straight through Processing system. The system also provides comprehensive Risk Management tools for monitoring Open Exchange, Market and Credit, Operational, and Interest Rate Risk. SWIFT confirmation and payment messages are generated transactionally and may be viewed real-time by settlement staff. Correspondence software is available to generate user-defined confirmation messages for non-bank counterparties and these may be issued automatically via linked MS Exchange 2000.

B@NCS Trade
TRADE FINANCE is a complex business due to the labor-intensive workflows required completing and managing a transaction throughout its life cycle. FNS B@ncs Trade provide complete workflow automation applying user defined business rules and interfaces seamlessly with International Payment Gateways.
B@ncs Trade provides flexible tools for transaction and authorization tracking, user access and security. Its integration with core banking and Great Plains General Ledger reduces bookkeeping through automatic generation of Accounting Entries.

Benefits

Competitive Edge:
The new agile IT infrastructure gave ECB a tremendous advantage in the market, with tangible results reflected one the banks performance during the first 12 months. Improvement of customer experience, shortened time-to-market of new products increased market share. It also helped the bank shift its emphasis from Corporate to retail banking.

Increased Management Control:
Both bancs24 and Great Plains General Ledger provided management with adaptable control tools that enabled then to monitor performance and make guided decision in near real-time. On the operation level, the cross functional audit features of GP General Ledger enhanced the

Improved Product Delivery environment:
Unlike its legacy application Bancs24 offers Continuous Operations 24 hours a day. From the customers perspective he will never be denied service at the ATM because the system is performing end-of-day operations. From the bank’s point of view this and other customer centric features it increases revenue and help attract new customers.

Saving for the Future:
ECB’s Strategic decision to outsource the IT function and to select a platform based on Microsoft technology has resulted in substantial savings not only in current operation over legacy which is estimated at 28%, but also projected these savings into the future where the platforms improved performance and scalability help protect the bank’s investment in its infrastructure.

Fast Facts
		Customer Profile Egyptian Commercial Bank went through major restructuring to become the best performing bank in Egypt in 2002/2003. ECB uses its new IT capabilities to spearhead its market penetration program through the introduction of customized products and services including private banking to a growing universe of customers.
		Partner Profile NSR pioneered mission critical application services to the financial industry and other large enterprises in Egypt. NSR also provides integrated BPR and other IT and management consulting services to its clients
		Business Situation The legacy system of ECB was hindering the development and expansion of the bank. The bank needed to move quickly to a more agile system that allows them to respond to customer needs and market opportunities.
		Solution NSR provided a mission critical, cost effective and scalable solution based on Microsoft technologies that allow banks to react to rapid changes in the market and provide customers with improved products and services
		Benefits Customer Satisfaction Competitive Edge Increased market share Substantial Cost Savings
		Software and Services Microsoft® Windows® Microsoft Office Microsoft SQL Server™ Microsoft Share Point Server FNS Bancs24 NSR Banknetics Portal
		Partner NSR a subsidiary of NTC Financial Network Services FNS Microsoft Great Plans

		“ The implementation of the project within seven months down from a traditional 24-36 months is an incredible achievement made possible only by the excellence of the products and the sheer energy of the professionals involved in the implementation. It enabled the bank to complete its internal restructuring and transformation in record time. This was reflected in the banks stellar performance during the past 12 months.” Gamal Moharam Deputy Chairman &Managing Director Egyptian Commercial Bank