Case Studies

A major bank in South America hired ECS for managing their money movement messages in a mixed environment. Some instructions were to be prepared in MT while others in MX formats. ECS utilized IMS to do the following.

1. Instant on-boarding of corporate customers
2. Treasury Workstation and Dashboards
3. MT to MX or MX to MT conversion as needed
4. Batch uploads from various source systems
5. Deliver in desired format and protocol
6. Dashboards for monitoring and internal controls
7. Configuration screens for changing counterparty preferences
8. Interfaces for handling exceptions

A major hedge fund company in the US decided to utilize ECS for automating its money transfer requests with its Prime Brokers and Custodians. ECS provided its IMS for Institutional Transfers Module which offered the following:

1. User friendly forms and templates for entering money movement instructions
2. Forms for supporting bulk payments
3. Forms and Templates for single-debit multi-credit and one-to-one Debit/Credit activities
4. Create Swift or other instructions utilizing details from Reference Data tables
5. Ability to attach documents to the transaction for audit purposes
6. Helped in moving to a paper-free environment
7. Engage Internal Controls like Forms/Template/Standing Instructions Lockdown
8. Utilize batch-load from Back Office System
9. Create Instructions as Swift, signed PDF or Fixed Length Messages
10. Transmit via MQ/SWIFT, sFTP or Email based on Counterparty preference
11. Audit trail on payment pulled out underlying messages as well as documents and events

A major hedge fund company in the US decided to utilize ECS for automating its Trade Settlement workflows with Prime Brokers and Custodians. ECS provided its IMS for Trade Settlement Module which was installed at the customer site. The application did the following:

1. Receive trade details in Excel files from Order Management System
2. Store Standing Settlement Instructions (SSI) on Reference Data tables
3. Utilize SSI to enrich and validate Settlement Instructions
4. Prepare Instructions in desired formats based on counterparty preference
5. Transmit to appropriate Custodians and Prime Brokers
6. Process Confirms, Status and Statements
7. Display all outstanding instructions on a single dashboard by State and Status
8. Prepare STP entries for updating source systems with Status

One of the major hedge fund companies in the US wanted to migrate its SWIFT connectivity and management of all messages from a traditional provider to a robust platform that organizes all data traffic by category and provide user-friendly Dashboards for various type of users and Operations team. The platform is expected to reach 100% STP covering various type of transactions that include Institutional Transfers, Foreign Exchange, Securities Settlement as well as incoming Confirms and Statements.

ECS demonstrated IMS Gateway, its Enterprise Message Hub for organizing all data traffic for the prospect. The decision was made to do the migration. The following were accomplished in a very short period of time.

1. Transmit to internal system in proprietary formats
2. Receive Statements via SWIFT, provide multiple views for various user groups
3. Establish RMA with all major Custodians and Prime-brokers
4. Migrate to ECS Data Center utilizing SWIFT Service Bureau for message exchange
5. Acquire own BIC for the prospect and assist in moving away from the provider’s Branch Code
6. Receive proprietary files containing payment instructions
7. Validate and prepare instructions in standard formats based on preference of receiving party
8. Provide dashboard for internal controls and transmit to counter parties
9. Receive and process Debit/Credit confirms
10. Provide interface for automatically creating requests for Status/Cancels
11. Process Responses and update source systems
12. MT/MX Switch readiness for counterparties who may request 20022 messages
13. Receive proprietary files containing settlement instructions
14. Validate and prepare instructions in standard formats based on preference of receiving party
15. Provide Dashboard for internal controls and transmit to counterparties
16. Receive and process Status messages and Confirms
17. Provide interface for automatically creating request for Status/Cancels
18. Process responses and update source systems
19. Provide Notifications Dashboard for event management and exception handling

1. Receive Statements from all its banks
2. Show pair-wise view of how each payment instruction match with statement messages
3. Sort statements by account number
4. Display money moved between accounts, currency, countries etc. for user defined periods
5. Automatically create and store/email PDF reports with month-end and year-end summaries
6. Provide user the ability to insert comments against individual transaction within a statement
7. Load all historical statements from multiple versions of SAA Archive files
8. Make all historical messages searchable online by amount, account number, pattern etc.

One of the UN companies evaluated ECS along with several vendors for about 9 months and decided to acquire its Statement Management Module. One of the objectives was to move to a paper-free environment. The organization used to print thousands of papers which were daily statements coming from its bank after having done money movement with more than 150 countries worldwide. IMS was engaged to manage statements so that statement printing can be stopped along with movement of papers from one user’s desk to another. Piles of papers already filling up the basement were destroyed. The roles taken by IMS are listed below

One of the larger corporates in South America evaluated ECS based on the references provided by one of the banks that was already using IMS for processing corporate payments. The corporate prospect generates millions of payment instructions each day which are low amount registries coming from various channels. The files carries large number of instructions which had to be identified, categorized, validated and processed for transmitting to various banks for further processing. The corporate utilized ECS data center and IMS application so that it can continue to enlarge the fast growing business without having to be concerned about technology limitations. IMS demonstrated its ability to process any type of file, do validations differentially based on categorization, prepare instructions in preferred formats and transmit to appropriate destination by various transport protocols. Responses are gathered to advance underlying instructions to subsequent stages. Dashboards and interfaces are extended to various user groups for monitoring, internal controls and exception handling.

One of the large banks in South America evaluated ECS for its ability to onboard corporate customers. The decision was made to engage ECS by utilizing the following modules

1. IMS Payments for Corporates
2. IMS Statement Management for Corporates

The bank managed to exhibit competing capabilities by offering to instantly onboard prospects thereby winning prestigious customers. Some of the capabilities of IMS that helps the bank in this competitive effort are:

1. Take large files with multiple formats
2. Apply validation rules differently for each type of transaction
3. Channel to different internal systems
4. Receive responses and deliver them in desired formats
5. Receive statement files from internal systems
6. Create statements in desired format and transmit to customers
7. Provide dashboards for monitoring, reporting and exception handling

One of the large banks in Asia spend about a year evaluating more than 15 vendors worldwide for identifying an innovative payment solution that best fits the need of all user groups. IMS was selected based on a list of credentials, features and functions.

1. Dashboards for various user groups, Interface for operations, web enabled
2. Instant connection with external and fast integration with source systems
3. Multi-client, Multi-branch, Regional and Departmental Support
4. Multi-language, time-zones and user access schedules by location
5. Try/Buy and risk-free acquisition offered for the first Payment Module
6. No need for message transformation services

The bank went live processing all incoming SWIFT messages, providing interface for each user-group for internal control and STP with multiple source systems within a month. Outgoing SWIFT instructions were completed in another 3 months.

RTGS payments, both outgoing and incoming were migrated in another 2 months. The solution consisted of IMS payment modules for RTGS as well as the client adapter that will interface/bridge between IMS and the Central Bank system.

Later, the bank recognized the value of preparing/processing ACH payments utilizing IMS modules catering to payment instructions and STP entries from/to several source systems. This migration took about 3 months against an anticipated one year.

Compliance check and duplicate checks were engaged at multiple points for operational efficiencies. At the time of creation and release for outgoing instructions. Incoming advices are checked at the time of receiving form external entities.

Cash management, became a valuable commodity across various internal departments. Estimation of cash positions at real-time along with balance enquiries, helped in real-time decisions and actual movement of money.

IMS collected incoming statements as well as batch files from internal systems for doing a series of Reconciliation. Payment Instructions were reconciled against statements and further matched against files from various systems.

IMS stored all data from messages, files, and documents in a central repository organized into multiple schemas. This became the source for various type of views as well as Reports for various business divisions and user-groups.

The bank’s savings on operation cost alone exceeded the overall cost of the project within the first six months of going live with first module.

One of the major international banks utilize IMS Payments for institutional transfers and cash management for its investment group. Source systems create files with minimum information that covers amount, from account, to account and value date. IMS does the following

1. Fill in account details using reference data tables
2. Set counterparty format and preferences (Swift, proprietary formats, signed PDF)
3. Prepare the money transfer instruction in desired format
4. Attach documents against instruction for long term storage and paper-free environment
5. Provide dashboard for n levels of approval based on amount thresholds
6. Wait for pre-defined release time when applicable
7. Transmit via Swift or FTP or PDF attached to email
8. Receive Responses/Acknowledgements/Confirms/Statements via multiple channels
9. Reconcile underlying instructions against incoming statements
10. Provide appropriate Dashboards and User-Interfaces
11. Support action items like Request for Status, Request for Cancel, Notice to Receive
12. Process Responses appropriately