Banking and Financial Serivices

S. P. Solutions has experience in creating solutions to facilitate the approvals for various customer initiation processes. Managing and processing customer requests by generating transactions to be integrated to core banking platforms as well as the SLIPS platform and other infrastructure service provider systems. We have a comprehensive Electronic Funds Transfer Platform which is geared to capture records from various systems and generate file outputs which are accepted by the common electronic payment switch operated by Lanka Clear – the clearing arm of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

The company has designed several components and functions which are specific to banks and financial institutions, including a strong security and audit suit as well as user management, department capacity utilization, document repositories, and document reconciliation. Since Service Levels are key differentiators in this industry we have created a comprehensive SLA setting, monitoring and alert system which ensures an organization delivers against service levels communicated to customers.

Document Management

eDGEVANTAGE supports document management functionality allowing a a bank or financial institution to manage all documents received from clients. To scan and process customer requests based on a scanned image, store and retrieve customer documents using key words, generate documents from the bank to customers, generate internal documents and email alerts. eDGEVANTAGE also facilitates reconciling hardcopy documents with the images used for processing before the hard copies are archived.

Interdepartmental Handshakes

One of the most contentious issues with large organizations which have processes that span several departments is inter-departmental handshakes, which ensure that processes are handed over on time with all pre-requisites completed. eDGEVANTAGE is able to track the handshake between departments from cut off times for handover of process instances; to ensuring that minimum standards are met before one departments hands over a process instance to another department. As well as tracking returns and rework created by each department.

Service Level Agreements

The Financial Services market is a mature industry, hence companies compete and differentiate based on the service offered. Hence service levels govern most of the customer facing processes. eDGEVANTAGE allows an organization to define, monitor and report on Service levels set for various processes

Department Capacity Utilization

In the financial services sector, Operational Efficiencies make a huge impact on profitability. The DCU module in eDGEVANTAGE allows an organization to understand how back office users and even front line staff spend their time, and therefore processes can be adjusted and amended to ensure the best possible level of efficiency. eDGEVANTAGE also tracks rework generated within a process, hence users who cerate rework can be identified and trained to improve the quality and effectiveness of their work.

Reporting

Reporting on the health of your processes is generally a full time job; eDGEVANTAGE automates the entire reporting function by allowing an organization to define the reports required and generating real-time reports on the health, effectiveness and efficiency of all processes managed via the system.

Electronic Fund Transfers

In the Sri Lankan banking system there are several different methods to facilitate inter-bank payments. One such method for payments upto Rs 5 million is SLIPS (Sri Lanka Interbank Payment Switch) which is an online Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) platform.

Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) is a movement of funds from one account to another without the corresponding piece of paper to authorize or prove that the transfer had occurred. Thus, crediting and debiting of accounts are handled more promptly and accurately without the need to write cheques, pay orders or vouchers. Moving electronic records rather than paper results in payments being processed more efficiently with advanced security features and audit trails.

The SP Solutions EFT platform allows a bank or any company that handles a large volume of payments frequently to use the system to generate accurate transaction files for several different payment types:

1. Outward remittances from one account to another
2. Outward remittances from a credit card to an account
3. Inward remittances from one account to another

The system generates actual transaction records based on the logic and format specified by Lanka Clear (http://www.lankaclear.com) and is configured to generate transactions from value dates ranging from T+0 to T+3 based on the urgency of the transaction.

Application in Commercial Banks – this system is ideal for Banks since each local Commercial Bank can only have a single connection to Lank Clear. Hence the EFT platform is designed to collect all transaction requests received by the bank from all their customer facing systems, and then collate these transactions; cleanse the transactions using a MAKER / CHECKER system and generate the SLIPS format. The system allows transactions to be input via file uploads, data entry, and via a diskette from customer, generated using a specially built component.

Application in Stock Brokering Firms

Stock brokering firms are now required to settle their customers "SELL" transactions within the specified "T+3" – However this leads to a cash flow crunch in the event customers do not settle their "BUY" transactions within a reasonable time frame. The EFT platform from SP gives stock brokers two choices:

1. Use the direct debit transaction option (just add the required transaction code and the system will generate the logic) to direct debit the inward remittance to the customers trading account

2. Use the system to generate a consolidated transaction (the sum of all inward and outward transactions) and then send the final transactions as either an outward or inward remittance

The system maintains a full suite of master data which allow the system to validate transactions and ensure transactions are correct and all components of the transaction are included in the final file format. In the non-banking deployment the system has the flexibility to generate a file format that can be accepted by the commercial banking handling the transaction.