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Credit Cards Merchant Acceptance
A Fortune 50 bank re-engineered its charge processing system, thereby reducing over $500 million in costs and increasing revenues by over $300 million.
Credit Cards Merchant Acceptance
Merchant Acceptance is an integral part of the Credit Card Business in India for all large banks. With increasing competition in this field, the merchants had become more demanding with respect to turnaround times for payment and accuracy in charge processing The existing Merchant Charge Processing system was a Batch processing system with a lot of manual intervention required at various stages. Turnaround times for processing of charges ranged from 1-3 days depending on the number of interventions required. Chargebacks were also high due to payments being made to Merchants without validations to keep up with competition.
The Online Charge Processing System, also called Merchant Express, was developed to move from batch to on-line processing of charges without compromising on the charge validation process. The system automated the manual processes of the earlier system and with the ability to process on-line reduced the turnaround time to a few minutes. At the same time it ensured that all charges were validated before payments and hence reduced charge-back volumes to only customer disputes. Apart from increased customer satisfaction with turnaround times and processing accuracy, the system resulted in annualized savings of 493$M from reduced Merchant Overdraft and funding cost saves, reduction in incoming chargebacks from 199$M to 22$M, and increase in revenue of 332$M. The system was also nominated for Global Quality Recognition Award and recognized as the highest revenue generating process improvement project in this large Fortune 50 bank worldwide for 1999.
Technology Used
- Application Development: Pro-C
- Database: Oracle
- Operating System: Sun Solaris
Loyalty Programs in the Banking Industry
A Fortune 50 bank introduces customer loyalty programs for their credit card and debit card programs, with delivery systems that range from snail-mail to Web based access.

Loyalty Programs in the Banking Industry
A Fortune 50 Bank required Loyalty Marketing systems for their debit cards program along with significant changes in their existing program for credit cards.
Key Objectives
- Increased customer satisfaction, with the core product and with the loyalty program
- Reduction in churn (customer turnover)
- Promotion of new, or non-performing product lines
- Change in consumer behavior (e.g. kick-start usage of ATM card as Debit Card)
- Upsell and cross-sell of merchandise
The fully enabled loyalty system has the following main features:
- Customer Analysis
- Customer Segmentation
- Customer Retention
- Web Enabled System
- Upsell and cross-sell of merchandise
Technology Used
- Application Development: Pro-C, Java, XML
- Database: Oracle
- Operating System: Sun Solaris
- Others: BEA Weblogic

Bill Payments for Retail Banking Customers
For the first time, Internet Banking empowered customers to pay their water, electricity and telephone bills online.
Bill Payments for Retail Banking Customers
A large worldwide Financial Institution set-up a debit card pilot in Bangalore, India. The basic business proposition was to test the marketing and financial viability of opening up a mass base through a remote-access-only savings account product and then cross-selling various funds and fee based products through a carefully crafted life stage marketing program.
Remote access was through ATM centers, touch screen kiosks, Internet banking, debit card machines and phone banking. Internet banking was a key remote access tool, because of low transaction service costs and for the ability of the channel to put the customer in charge. The initial Internet banking offerings were Information retrieval (Statements, Account Balance, etc), and Intranet-relationship Account transfers. Customer research quickly revealed that customers wanted a comprehensive range of services, and payment of Utility Bills figured high in their wish lists. Releasing a full-function Utility Bills payment system would also result in competitive advantage and enhance the technology profile. However, Utility Payment options had to be rolled out across all access points - touch screens, phone banking etc, simultaneously.
The architecture of the Utility Bills payment module addressed unique process challenges: every utility had its own unique business processes. Cellular, pager and telephone utilities were computerized and could accept data transfer at a central point into the billing systems.
The Government run electricity and water utilities had manual, decentralized billing systems across 100+ billing centers in a single city. If the payment was submitted to the wrong billing center, there was no automatic re-directing of the data/payment to the right center. The customer could even face disconnection of services. Therefore, the front-end system design incorporated:
- Minimum data entries, to avoid customer/front office manual errors
- self-learning systems, whereby the system could predict the data entry, based on previous transactions
- Cross-checking algorithms, to verify integrity of data
Technology Used
- Application Development: Java, JSP, C
- Web Server: Weblogic 5.1
- Database: Oracle 8i
- Operating System: Sun Solaris 2.7
The back-end was flexible enough to fit in with the different process of the utilities. Plus, there had to be complete information and financial integrity, across access channels. The system incorporated a central utility creation and maintenance module. Parameters were stored centrally, and accessed by a variety of front-end devices. Customer-side finance's were passed online, while the Utility-side finance's were passed in a batch mode. Utilities also had the facility to access their transaction details, online.
Web based Customer Integrator for Banking
Solutions for the east coast business for private banking relationship managers of a major US bank.

Web based Customer Integrator for Banking
This project was targeted at the department that serviced very high net worth individuals. These individuals have investments across a wide range of products across a wide range of geographical locations. They also normally have a complex holding pattern. Due to the large number of products offered, the department decided not to get into the business of developing and maintaining product processors. Instead, they use the processors developed by the Consumer banking unit or the corporate banking unit. This has resulted in a scenario where customer's accounts are booked on different product processors, which are heterogeneous and geographically separated. It is, therefore, very difficult for Service Officers to service clients quickly and effectively. The web based customer integrator provides all information relating to customer entitlements and customer financial information in one place through a simple browser interface.
There are 2 sources of information
- ODS - An operational data source which is refreshed with feeds from the various product processors daily. This involved mapping data elements from the various product processors to the ODS data tables and designing the feeds for the various product processors. A data migration utility was developed to process the feeds and upload it into the ODS.
- Online - The information in the ODS is dated. Whenever the service officer requires online information a terminal based application can be invoked or the information could be obtained from an online messaging service. The user sign-on, remote navigation etc are handled transparently by the application using a screen-scraping based navigation engine. This provides the user the luxury of single sign-on and context sensitive access.
Technology Used
- Application Development: Java, JSP, C
- Web Server: Weblogic 5.1
- Database: Oracle 8i
- Operating System: Sun Solaris 2.7

Mutual Funds Sales System for Citibank, Europe
Building a sophisticated web-centric mutual funds sales tool for the Citibank Investments EMEA sales team that is now used across Europe
Mutual Funds Sales System for Citibank, Europe
This project involved the development of a Mutual Funds Sales Tool that would assist the Mutual funds Sales Force in analyzing customer needs, making investment recommendations, providing information about various funds and creating a recommended portfolio of Investments for the customer. The existing process for this was entirely manual where a customer's profiling (based on predetermined parameters) was done by hand and information about various funds had to be located from various journals or scanning through multiple websites. A final recommendation, if any, also would be a free-formatted list put together from all these sources. The Mutual Funds Sales System developed has the following features:
Sources of Information
- Accepting customer data.
- Analyzing customer's Risk Profile based on predetermined parameters.
- Automatic generation of Proposed Investment Recommendation.
- Exchange of information with Standard and Poor using XML for display of the required information for the selected funds.
- Providing up-to-date information about various Funds such as performance, NAV, rating, etc on a single page by integration with Standard & Poors.
Database
- Providing a facility to search and funds to the standard recommendation.
- Create a proposed portfolio for the customer and present it in a pre-formatted PDF document.
- Facility to independently inquire and search on performance, reports, etc of various funds from a single application.
Technology Used
- Application Development: Java, EJB, JSP, and XML
- Web Server: Weblogic 5.1
- Database: Oracle 8i
- Operating System: Sun Solaris 2.7
Database Management System for Citibank
Building a comprehensive document management system for Citibank Investments EMEA which saves search time, reduces wastage and manages a complex documentation environment.

Database Management System for Citibank
Building a comprehensive document management system for Citibank Investments EMEA which saves search time, reduces wastage and manages a complex documentation environment.
Customer Requirements:
This project involved the development of a system to create and manage a centralized searchable database of documents for the Citibank EMEA Investments Region. The Citibank Investments Analysis and Product team is centralized in London for the Europe, Middle East and Asia Region. This team was responsible for making available the various documents available related to Fund houses and the Mutual Funds Markets in general, such as, prospectus, annual reports, market research reports, fund fact sheets, etc., to the various sales teams in each of the countries in these regions. The sheer volume of the documents and the varied sources made it necessary to have a centralized archive available which could be accessed by the various countries instead of their having to be distributed or obtained independently.
Our Solution
The Content Database Management System developed has the following features:
- User Interface to create and maintain a database of documents organized and categorized by various filters like, Fund code, Fund House, Language, Document Type, Region, etc.
- Provide a facility to search the database and retrieve the document for viewing/download by various users in different countries through Citibank's internal global network.
- Integration of this database with the Mutual Fund Sales System, to provide immediate access to these documents at the Sales Point.
Technology Used
- Application Development: Java, EJB, JSP, and XML
- Web Server: Weblogic 5.1
- Database: Oracle 8i
- Operating System: Sun Solaris 2.7

Web Based Trading Systems
Building a comprehensive document management system for Citibank Investments EMEA which saves search time, reduces wastage and manages a complex documentation environment.
Web Based Trading Systems
Consulting and designing systems and processes for a large internet brokerage business in India
The Company operates in the retail equity brokerage market with complete reliance on remote access channels for its customers. Currently, customers use the Internet to access their account and to trade; The Company also plans to roll out access through touch screen kiosks, IVR systems and phone. Sound IT enabled back office processes are key to business operations. They leveraged our extensive IT and process management skills towards the following deliverables
- Review and value add to existing technology specs.
- Interaction with the technology team towards delivery and implementation of the back office processes.
- Lead the back office team in terms of training and streamlining processes.
- Set up and implement a process of reconciliation with depositories and banks.
- Design and program manage delivery of key modules in Risk, Finance, Customer Communication and External Interfaces.
- Ensure comprehensive training for all hands off.
The Risk Management Module was particularly important to the company. A sophisticated risk analytical model was developed which resulted in increased leverage for customers on existing margins, without compromising on overall credit risk. The module was integrated with real-time market-to-market modules, and the Communications Module, to inform customers of their overall margin position.
Mutual Funds Product Processors
Enabling a Fortune 50 financial institution go online with a broader range of mutual funds and robust customer service options

Mutual Funds Product Processors
Enabling a Fortune 50 financial institution go online with a broader range of mutual funds and robust customer service options
This project involved the development of a Mutual Fund product processor. The existing system could only handle proprietary Mutual Funds.
The Mutual Fund product processor developed has the following features:
- Handles both third party and proprietary mutual funds.
- Handles Class A, B and C type of funds.
- Handles various types of fees, such as entry and exit loads, management fees, trailer fees etc (Flexible charging module has been developed).
- Handles bearer certificates and coupons.
- Handles dividend payments.
- Handles corporate actions such as mergers, transfers and switch.
- Handles tax calculation.
- Interface to Liability, Accounting, Customer relationship owner, Agent commission and Profitability systems built.
- Socket based communication module for TCP/IP message servers and APPC LU 6.2 based communication module for IBM mainframes were developed for online interfaces.
- Batch interface module also developed
Technology Used
- Application Development: Java, EJB, JSP, and C
- Web Server: Weblogic 5.1
- Database: Oracle 8i
- Operating System: Sun Solaris 2.7