CASE STUDY

Building a scalable, high growth business

Bank of Scotland (Ireland) automated their Payments and Receipts processing with TLM to create a centralised process management hub that delivers greater operational control, lower costs whilst improving customer service.
Bank of Scotland is the rst high street retail bank to be launched in Ireland for 150 years. Formed from the merger of ICC Bank and Bank of Scotland which itself was the result of Bank of Scotlands 1999 acquisition of Equity Bank the rm opened the doors of its branch network in January 2006. In opening the branch network, the bank anticipated customer numbers would increase, which would in turn drive up transaction volumes. Our business has grown rapidly, payments and receipt transactions have more than doubled in six months and we continue to anticipate growth of around 20 percent a year, says John Bissett, Head of IT, Bank of Scotland. The bank could foresee its manual cash payments and receipts processes would struggle to handle growth rates of this magnitude, even if extra staff were added. SWIFT messages were manually created and there was no automated way of tracking the accuracy of actual cash positions for more than one dozen currencies and over 30 accounts. Bank of Scotland did not want to replace its two treasury systems, which had served it well, therefore a decision was made to implement technology that would provide an interface between these two systems and SWIFT. At the same time, the bank also decided to automate their reconciliation process. Recognising the benets of best in class technology, the rm decided to evaluate a number of packaged applications. After a thorough investigation of six products, the rm prioritised ease of integration and scalability, and selected SmartStreams TLM Reconciliations, TLM Cash Management and TLM WebConnect. All three solutions are part of SmartStreams TLM Enterprise Control Architecture, which would eliminate integration problems for Bank of Scotland, providing a highly automated front end tailored to the banks unique requirements. The project began with a workshop in Dublin at which users and business analysts from the bank met with SmartStream staff to design the system. We did not want to replicate what we were doing manually, time was allocated to ensure a system delivered a real step change and met everyones requirements, says Eugenie McCabe, Project Manager, Bank of Scotland.

Bank of Scotland (Ireland)

The implementation of TLM Cash Management has delivered a single, global view across all currencies and accounts in real time

Conguration work began in August 2005 and three months of user acceptance testing began at the end of November. This is a critical system, once you send a SWIFT message, the money is gone. It was important that this was right, adds McCabe. The system went live in March 2006 and covers 18 different SWIFT message types. TLM Cash Management receives transaction data from the two treasury systems and the integrated rules-based Workow identies each transaction type and determines the appropriate course of action. TLM Reconciliations automatically reconciles notications and conrmations based on predened matching criteria. SmartStreams Web portal TLM WebConnect provides Bank of Scotland with a real time view of their payments and receipts operations. Additionally, the rm now have the added benet of a complete audit trail for every transaction. The implementation of TLM Cash Management has delivered a single, global view across all currencies and accounts in real time, providing an accurate view of balances and current risk prole. The solution captures transaction data from any internal

or external source, facilitating the calculation and projection of funding, borrowing and lending requirements on an enterprise wide basis. TLM Reconciliations removes the need for manual checking of balances against overnight SWIFT statements. This automation, whereby the banks balances are updated in real time, delivers much greater control over cash balances, leaving Bank of Scotland to better utilise its cash, particularly in areas such as short term funding. Bank of Scotland estimates that it can now handle two and a half times the volumes it did with manual processing, while retaining the same number of staff (ve in the settlements area, for example). Implementing TLM has delivered signicant benets to Bank of Scotland we now have a centralised process management hub for Payments and Receipts, says Bissett. The complete operation is automatically managed from start to nish, delivering a greater level of operational control whilst controlling costs and improving customer service.

About SmartStream Technologies

SmartStream Technologies delivers operational advantage to clients through enterprise-wide, real-time Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM) solutions that automate, track and control financial transactions and processes within and beyond the enterprise.
CASH MANAGEMENT CO M P L I A N C E M A N A G E M E N T CO R P O R AT E AC T I O N S

Built on SmartStreams TLM Enterprise Control Architecture, TLM solutions provide greater transaction visibility to create exceptionsbased operations capable of automating complex and high volume transaction flows. Operational risk and cost is reduced, while customer service levels are improved.
E XC E P T I O N M A N AG E M E N T OTC D E R I VAT I V E S P R O C E S S I N G R E CO N C I L I AT I O N S

SmartStream is owned by Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and has global operations supporting over 1,000 clients, including more than 75 of the worlds top 100 banks. For more information please visit:

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www.smartstream-stp.com
TRADE FINANCE T R A D E P R O C E S S MA N AG E M E N T T R E A S U RY CO N F I R MAT I O N S