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EBank Limited revolutionized banking in Namibia, providing bank accounts to over 70,000 Namibians including rural area residents and grew its network of retail partners to 120 outlets
EBank Limited revolutionized banking in Namibia, providing bank accounts to over 70,000 Namibians including rural area residents and grew its network of retail partners to 120 outlets
Core banking integration
Digital transformation of services
Banking
Fiorano Platform
Namibia is a challenging market where a relatively small population is scattered over an unusually large geography.
EBank's business model is built around the requirement to quickly and efficiently integrate with third-party suppliers and vendors, to provide clients with a wide range of services and enable them to complete banking transactions at the retail outlets that have partnered and integrated with EBank.
EBank runs its Temenos Core banking, T24, on a Microsoft Server Environment using VMware hosting databases on SQL. The EBank environment core processes about 3,000 transactions a day and there are 7 applications talking to each other. The exchange of data is done in various formats, including xml, ISO8583 and ISO20021 with 30 internal users operating on the environment.
As such, EBank was looking for an integration platform that would allow for seamless integration using a multitude of interface language protocols without having to perform development on the core banking system (CBS) itself. In addition, EBank's philosophy of offering affordable banking services to its clients dictated that EBank had to contain its spend on infrastructure capacity. EBank, therefore was looking for an integration platform which was not resource intensive and had a low cost of operation and maintenance.
70,000 +
Namibians holding EBank account
Linked with huge network of bank's retail partners
Namibia is a challenging market where a relatively small population is scattered over an unusually large geography.
EBank's business model is built around the requirement to quickly and efficiently integrate with third-party suppliers and vendors, to provide clients with a wide range of services and enable them to complete banking transactions at the retail outlets that have partnered and integrated with EBank.
EBank runs its Temenos Core banking, T24, on a Microsoft Server Environment using VMware hosting databases on SQL. The EBank environment core processes about 3,000 transactions a day and there are 7 applications talking to each other. The exchange of data is done in various formats, including xml, ISO8583 and ISO20021 with 30 internal users operating on the environment.
As such, EBank was looking for an integration platform that would allow for seamless integration using a multitude of interface language protocols without having to perform development on the core banking system (CBS) itself. In addition, EBank's philosophy of offering affordable banking services to its clients dictated that EBank had to contain its spend on infrastructure capacity. EBank, therefore was looking for an integration platform which was not resource intensive and had a low cost of operation and maintenance.
70,000 +
Namibians holding EBank account
Linked with huge network of bank's retail partners
Gerald Riedel, CFO, EBank
Gerald Riedel, CFO, EBank
Initial analysis of integration platforms at EBank pointed out that the required combination of high flexibility with low resource consumption was not commonly found.
EBank chose Fiorano over other vendors based on:
EBank implemented Fiorano Platform together with a new core banking instance from Temenos. The implementation commenced in June 2016 and EBank went live with all systems at the beginning of March 2017, within a period of 8 months from project commencement.
Initial analysis of integration platforms at EBank pointed out that the required combination of high flexibility with low resource consumption was not commonly found.
EBank chose Fiorano over other vendors based on:
EBank implemented Fiorano Platform together with a new core banking instance from Temenos. The implementation commenced in June 2016 and EBank went live with all systems at the beginning of March 2017, within a period of 8 months from project commencement.
1. Account Origination: EBank provides a simple mechanism for creating accounts using a USSD code approach. All the information entered on the mobile screen is captured at Fiorano Platform and once the user enters all the data, it is pushed to the Core Banking System (CBS) for account origination.
2. Mobile Banking: All the mobile banking services such as cash in(deposit)/cash out(withdrawal)/Purchase Air Time/Purchase Electricity/Fund Transfer/Change PIN/Link Cards etc., are implemented in Fiorano Platform. The ease of use of the platform helped EBank to integrate with new partners very easily (ex. Integration with Olusheno).
3. Fund Transfer: All the Fund Transfers generated across channels (BackOffice, Internet Banking, USSD) are routed via the Fiorano Platform to Namclear to do the settlements. Several types of EFTs (SAMEDAY, DATED) are supported. A client can perform a DATED EFT where in the transaction is posted to Namclear on the specified date. Services are exposed in Fiorano to receive incoming EFTs from Namclear which are posted to CBS and the response is sent back to Namclear.
4. Card Services: All Card Processing transactions are carried out via Fiorano Platform. ATM Transactions/POS Transactions are routed via Fiorano Platform to CBS. Linking a Card to an account / Suspend a card is handled by Fiorano.
The implementation included the integration for switching of electronic fund transfers between local banks and integration of debit card interfaces for local and international transactions.
EBank also wanted to onboard a full USSD menu to enable customers to perform a full suite of banking transactions from their mobile phone without the need to have internet connectivity. The integration of the ECode engine would facilitate the switching of cash-in, cash-out and mobile payment transactions conducted at retail outlets, as well as the onboarding of airtime and electricity suppliers to enable customers buy utilities directly off their EBank account.
Before implementing Fiorano, EBank was dependent on third party providers to develop integrations between the EBank system and third-party suppliers. With the implementation of Fiorano and through the provision of thorough training by Fiorano consultants, EBank managed to up skill its internal resources within a period of three months. Since then, EBank has performed all integrations with third party applications internally and only on limited occasions sourced expert input from Fiorano to resolve a complex integration matters. A significant contributor to this swift implementation was the flexibility and ease of use that the Fiorano Integration layer offered.
1. Account Origination: EBank provides a simple mechanism for creating accounts using a USSD code approach. All the information entered on the mobile screen is captured at Fiorano Platform and once the user enters all the data, it is pushed to the Core Banking System (CBS) for account origination.
2. Mobile Banking: All the mobile banking services such as cash in(deposit)/cash out(withdrawal)/Purchase Air Time/Purchase Electricity/Fund Transfer/Change PIN/Link Cards etc., are implemented in Fiorano Platform. The ease of use of the platform helped EBank to integrate with new partners very easily (ex. Integration with Olusheno).
3. Fund Transfer: All the Fund Transfers generated across channels (BackOffice, Internet Banking, USSD) are routed via the Fiorano Platform to Namclear to do the settlements. Several types of EFTs (SAMEDAY, DATED) are supported. A client can perform a DATED EFT where in the transaction is posted to Namclear on the specified date. Services are exposed in Fiorano to receive incoming EFTs from Namclear which are posted to CBS and the response is sent back to Namclear.
4. Card Services: All Card Processing transactions are carried out via Fiorano Platform. ATM Transactions/POS Transactions are routed via Fiorano Platform to CBS. Linking a Card to an account / Suspend a card is handled by Fiorano.
The implementation included the integration for switching of electronic fund transfers between local banks and integration of debit card interfaces for local and international transactions.
EBank also wanted to onboard a full USSD menu to enable customers to perform a full suite of banking transactions from their mobile phone without the need to have internet connectivity. The integration of the ECode engine would facilitate the switching of cash-in, cash-out and mobile payment transactions conducted at retail outlets, as well as the onboarding of airtime and electricity suppliers to enable customers buy utilities directly off their EBank account.
Before implementing Fiorano, EBank was dependent on third party providers to develop integrations between the EBank system and third-party suppliers. With the implementation of Fiorano and through the provision of thorough training by Fiorano consultants, EBank managed to up skill its internal resources within a period of three months. Since then, EBank has performed all integrations with third party applications internally and only on limited occasions sourced expert input from Fiorano to resolve a complex integration matters. A significant contributor to this swift implementation was the flexibility and ease of use that the Fiorano Integration layer offered.
Expeditious launch of services - Fiorano provided a great level of flexibility and agility to EBank. Integration changes, either in the form of totally new integrations to third parties or of a change to an existing integration could be done quickly and without having to go through extensive programming cycles. This offers the benefit of reducing project integration timelines and enables EBank to quickly adapt to market needs and launch new services.
Efficient issue escalation and resolution - In case of a functional breakdown, the Fiorano platform alerts the functional team in real time, avoiding any business disruptions, quickening the process of issue escalation.
Improved bottom line - EBank saved significantly on development costs as Fiorano Platform is a codeless integration platform. Moreover, Fiorano Platform obviated the need to invest in additional software resulting in reduction in overall costs.
Faster response to internal business needs - Automatically configuring the underlying middleware allows the logical process design to be mapped directly to physical services distributed across the Fiorano Platform, empowering non-technical business-users to compose, deploy, and modify event-driven business processes.
Agility and Reliability - EBank can now easily change/update any service or workflow without any negative impact on the overall system. The underlying messaging broker guarantees message delivery and provides message interception capabilities to alter the processes during runtime.
Note: - The Pointbreak Group, including EBank, were acquired by FNB Namibia Holdings effective 30 March 2017. EBank and First National Bank of Namibia have a similar vision of achieving inclusive and broad-based banking in Namibia, primarily utilizing technology and cell phone banking capabilities. As part of the integration of EBank's business into First National Bank of Namibia, EBank's business operations will be migrated to the FNB core banking platform.
Expeditious launch of services - Fiorano provided a great level of flexibility and agility to EBank. Integration changes, either in the form of totally new integrations to third parties or of a change to an existing integration could be done quickly and without having to go through extensive programming cycles. This offers the benefit of reducing project integration timelines and enables EBank to quickly adapt to market needs and launch new services.
Efficient issue escalation and resolution - In case of a functional breakdown, the Fiorano platform alerts the functional team in real time, avoiding any business disruptions, quickening the process of issue escalation.
Improved bottom line - EBank saved significantly on development costs as Fiorano Platform is a codeless integration platform. Moreover, Fiorano Platform obviated the need to invest in additional software resulting in reduction in overall costs.
Faster response to internal business needs - Automatically configuring the underlying middleware allows the logical process design to be mapped directly to physical services distributed across the Fiorano Platform, empowering non-technical business-users to compose, deploy, and modify event-driven business processes.
Agility and Reliability - EBank can now easily change/update any service or workflow without any negative impact on the overall system. The underlying messaging broker guarantees message delivery and provides message interception capabilities to alter the processes during runtime.
Note: - The Pointbreak Group, including EBank, were acquired by FNB Namibia Holdings effective 30 March 2017. EBank and First National Bank of Namibia have a similar vision of achieving inclusive and broad-based banking in Namibia, primarily utilizing technology and cell phone banking capabilities. As part of the integration of EBank's business into First National Bank of Namibia, EBank's business operations will be migrated to the FNB core banking platform.
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