Objectives
Commercial Bank of Ceylon’s mission is “To be the most technologically advanced, innovative and customer-friendly financial services organisation in Sri Lanka, poised for further expansion in South Asia.”
With this vision in mind, the bank aimed to introduce Straight Through Processing (STP) of SWIFT transactions with real-time bank account posting for its operations in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
The main objectives of the project were to:
- Automate sanctions screening, workflow, and payment status monitoring
- Reduce manual intervention and increase internal
controls - Mitigate settlement risk through real-time account posting
- Enhance customer convenience by providing faster payment services
Following a detailed evaluation, the bank selected Aqua Global Solutions Payment Hub.
The Solution
Aqua Global provided a centralised messaging hub managing a number of service channels with automatic distribution of inward transactions, and control of outward message creation.
The solution provided full STP of inbound electronic payment messages and real-time account posting to the bank’s core banking systems including fees and commissions for cross currency transactions.
This also allowed automatic selection of exchange rates, monitoring for currency non-working days, and automatic creation of electronic and paper settlement messages such as:
- SWIFT, inter-bank clearing messages
- Domestic Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System (SLIPS) funds transfer messages
- Printed credit and debit advices
- Central Bank of Sri Lanka Foreign Exchange messages (FORMS 1 & 2)
- Sri Lanka Customs Remittance Management messages (XML format)
Other features include:
- A manual input facility to cater for non-electronic transactions
- Real-time account posting is performed by using a standard API interface to ensure full support for all accounting entries
- Automatic generation and management of charge claims that are payable by correspondent banks initiating a payment instruction
Benefits
- Enhanced customer convenience by providing faster payment services
- Reduced manual intervention and increased internal controls
- Mitigated settlement risk through real time account posting
- Generation of new revenue streams
