Online Date Exchange (ODX) for Bulk Payments and Collections

Project Description

This project was undertaken for the Working Capital Services division of a large Australian bank. The division is responsible for processing of payments and collections for corporate clients. The requirement was to provide processing and workflow capabilities for the bulk file processing and delivery of payments and collection files.

The customer mandated the use of webMethods as their strategic integration suite. IT&e was selected for this project as the webMethods partner of choice due to our in-depth technical and EAI capabilities.

Project Summary

IT&e built a B2B bulk payment file processing and information delivery system that accepts client files, via an internet based Interface Channel and performs validation, processing, and delivery to the Bank’s back-end systems. IT&e provided an integration platform that is reusable and extendable so that the Bank can promote new services offerings with a quick deliver-to-market timeframe. At the time of implementation the system was handling 960 files per day with a peak data load of 140MB per hour.

The main processing component of the system was developed using the webMethods suite of products - Enterprise Server, Integration Server and Integration Developer. The Operator Console is built in J2EE technology, running on a Web Logic server using an Oracle database. The hardware platform was Windows NT.


International Money Transfers (IMT) via the Internet


Project Description

The project was an implementation of a multi-channel Internet site for International Money Transfers, with the initial channel providing seamless integration with the core Retail Internet Banking Site. The solution allows bank clients to submit International Money Transfers (IMT's) via the Internet, automating an existing manual branch operation.

Project Summary

The total solution encompassed multiple technology platforms, including IIS (Web Server), J2EE (Application Server), webMethods (Integration Server), and SQL Server and Oracle databases. The solution integrated with the core Retail Internet Banking Site, multiple back-end systems and data feeds. The solution demanded very high systemic qualities, with an emphasis on security, audibility, availability and reusability.

IT&e utilised webMethods for the integration layer, integrating to back-end systems via both WebSphere MQ Series and CICS. The integration layer adopted an adaptor methodology for all integration points, thereby achieving a high degree of isolation and reusability. The Application to Integration Layer interface utilised Web Services to achieve high reuse from multiple product systems.

The end solution exceeded the client’s expectations and was delivered within time and budget. The solution provides reusability at the Infrastructure, Application (Internet Channel) and Integration (for both Product and Back-End systems) level. The client can now achieve an STP rate exceeding 90%, whereas previously this was below 20%. The net benefits over a 5 year time frame from project initiation have been calculated to exceed 20 million dollars.


Credit Risk Management


Project Description

The project was to install and integrate a solution to measure Credit Risk across the entire position of a large Australian bank including both commercial and institutional trades (something never before attempted). The accuracy of the risk results are to be increased over time to allow the bank to improve its management of risk and increase the capacity of the bank to perform complex business transactions.

As the project covered all products across the bank, integration was required across all trading systems, both commercial and institutional. At the inception of the project no central risk data warehouse existed, hence all integration used direct connections to the source systems themselves.

Project Summary

A tender was undertaken to select the best credit risk application for both measuring the risk and limit management. IT&e’s own in house developed application Razor was the preferred solution providing the most accurate analytical results combined with a highly configurable and flexible limit management solution.

ClarITe was selected as the middleware solution between Razor and the integration layer. ClarITe is integral to Razor as it is developed as the distributed processing solution for its own internal communications. ClarITe is designed to provide the efficient transfer method required for the large data feeds along with the flexibility of XML based documents to support the wide variety of data structures utilised by the system.


C-SPARQ


Project Description

C-SPARQ is a highly distributed applications for Limits, Market and Credit Risk calculations. Communications between the various components are facilitated through TCP/IP sockets communication and IT&e’s XML messaging system, ClarITe.

ClarITe is used to facilitate the transfer of data between the Credit Risk Engine (CRE) and Credit Risk Limits (CRL) components of C-SPARQ. User requested tasks performed via the web-based credit risk limits system such as portfolio maintenance, limit enquiries, trade contributions and pre-deal checks use ClarITe to send the request to the CRE. The CRE also uses ClarITe to return results to the limits system.

Project Summary

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  • Microsoft Visual C++
  • Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0
  • Microsoft ActiveX/COM/DCOM
  • Microsoft Transaction Server
  • Microsoft Excel 97
  • Microsoft IIS
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000
  • Oracle 8.1.6
  • IT&e ClarITe

Straight Through Processing and Back Office Integration


Project Description

IT&e undertook a project for a high volume online equities house with the key business objective to provide a platform to integrate off-the-shelf and bespoke applications. The key success factors for this project were scalability, reliability and availability of the solution, and completing the project within budget & on time.

The middleware based integration platform has to support seamless price and depth updates for equities and option markets, as well as a vehicle for trade execution.

Project Summary

IT&e implemented TIBCO and Microsoft MSMQ as the middleware platform as they best suited the clients requirements and technical infrastructure. TIBCO provided a common transport to dispatch prices, market depth, order placement, order amendments, order execution and settlement. TIBCO was also used to manage and maintain a distributed user session data cache. This provides a stateless client environment, where in case of a server outage, client sessions could seamlessly move to a different server.

Microsoft MSMQ was used for function specific message storage, forward and parsing queues, for example, it was used to support the Order Placement Queue. This ensured a very highly available and scaleable environment where no trade is ever lost due to server outages.

IT&e specified, designed, developed, implemented and provided program management skills for the project. The key challenge was to provide an in-place application upgrade, where the incumbent application could work in harmony with the new middleware layer. The initial middleware environment was later extended to include Options trading through a configuration change. The simplicity of this upgrade speaks volumes about the versatility and robustness of the implemented solution.

The IT&e Infrastructure Design, used a TIBCO message bus setup with a mix of Multicast and Unicast to achieve best results. The project design is based on an array of Fault Tolerant TIBCO RVRD Daemons where outage on any RVRD or RVD daemon does not affect message delivery or client connectivity. This project achieved and out scaled the project goals. It was put to a real test post 9/11, where on Sept 12th 2001, the client’s peak server load was 4 times their previous high, and system performance remained within the system specifications.


eTrading Platform


Project Description

The project was to develop an eTrading platform for a large Australian bank to trade the following financial products:
  • Cash
  • Bank Bills
  • Commercial Paper
  • Fixed Income

Project Summary

IT&e’s PTX (Private Trading eXchange) product was selected to provide the presentation and business layers with Microsoft SQL Server as the database. The business layer had to integrate with the existing back-end systems including:

  • CICS based applications running on IBM Mainframe
  • Applications running on AS/400
  • A pricing engine implemented as a COM DLL
  • Price feeds utilising TIBCO Rendezvous

IT&e worked closely with the clients in-house development teams for the above systems to provide the most effective integration solutions for PTX. IT&e provided consultation and demonstration on the most effective integration solutions taking into account reusability and the customer current integration platforms and development capabilities.


 


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