OTP Bank, Hungary
Client Overview
OTP Bank is the largest commercial bank in Hungary and a major financial institution in the Central and Eastern European region, operating over 1000 branches in Hungary and other countries of the region. OTP Bank plans to acquire more small and medium sized banks in Eastern Europe.
Project Overview
OTP Bank is developing a fully functional core banking system with the Java based SUBA integration front-end and FLEXCUBE back-end processing system to facilitate uniform deployment across the acquired banks. The pilot initiative of this project is called the “JeT-Bank Project.”
Implementation Size
The scope of the “JeT-Bank Project” is limited to CORE, CASA, FT, SI and Lending modules. In the first phase, customer accounts and funds transfers will be handled through the Java based front-office application SUBA. Other modules such as SI and Consumer Lending will be directly handled by the FLEXCUBE back-office.
Services Rendered
We have provided continuous support to the OTP Bank in meeting these challenges by participating and delivering controlling results beginning with PWT through to the model implementation and support phases.
Our consultants have made on-site visits to the OTP Bank during the JeT-Bank PWT Project and assisted the bank’s team in finalizing the scope, identifying the gaps and recommending workarounds.
We reviewed the Conceptual Design document prepared by the OTP team and prepared the Technical Design Document for the Development of the SUBA – FLEXCUBE interface for CIF, CASA and FT modules.
Our consultants have helped the Bank with the complex parameterization of IC rules for the accounts, ICCF charges for the FT and SI modules and defined the formula based (“complex”) components and status change descriptions for the lending module.
Our technical experts were critically involved in a detailed data mapping of fields between the SUBA front end screens and the interfacing XML layer. We have developed a real-time online interface between SUBA and FLEXCUBE for CIF, CASA and the FT modules. Also we were responsible for the complete change management and we kept the development and the Technical Design Document synchronized for future references and enhancements. We have always provided a generic and flexible design to accommodate future enhancements and developments.
We also provided the expert advice on preparing and executing the test cases. Our consultants have reviewed the test case documents and confirmed overall coverage of the test scenarios.
Challenges - Front-end integration
OTP Bank has multiple applications specific to their operations on various modules like CIF, CASA, Funds Transfer and Lending. To avoid toggling between multiple systems, OTP Bank uses a single front-end application called SUBA through which various transactions are routed to different systems. In the same way, a separate on-line interface had to be built between SUBA and FLEXCUBE for CIF, CASA and FT modules.
OTP Bank has complex parameterization requirements with different IC applications for various accounts based on the type of account, tenor and the tiered amount.
Unlike a normal interface between two independent applications where both applications have their own data source, SUBA application did not have any data source. All the information had to be fetched and displayed from the FLEXCUBE system.
Lessons learned
During the Technical Design Document review, we have proactively identified the gaps in the interface design regarding the missing data source in the interfacing system and provided alternative options to refresh the data from FLEXCUBE as a source.
Our team, with its prior experience in the Hungarian market, has suggested various parameterization changes to the lending products through which all the products are kept more generic and configurable. This has avoided a lot of re-working efforts during the later stages of the project.
We have suggested a “Gold Copy” concept where all finalized, tested and verified parameterization and static maintenances are captured in a separate environment. This enabled the bank to quickly create new environments ready for testing with a ready-to-use day zero setup.
We assisted the bank in documenting all changes made to the design documents and parameterizations. This ensured that the changes are taken to the “Gold Copy”, in order to avoid redundant fixes and re-work efforts.