Banking Sector - Driving Direct Banking success

The issues

This fast growing bank, one of the largest direct banks in Europe with over seven million customers, began to centralise its customer correspondence output management in 2005.

The overriding issue was the reliance on a Word-based system that could not optimise the required document creation, nor could they allow centralised printing, nor be connected to the automated or central dispatch. The contents and the layout of the correspondence were often inconsistent.

The maintenance of the system had become very difficult, time-consuming and costly because of the reliance on Office for template updates.

Thus the bank needed to acquire a centralised solution for document composition and formatting, one which could also supply the central post-processing system with an AFP-data stream and relevant suitable indices.

The icon solution

icon Suite was selected as the solution and initially introduced to administer the central repository. The initial implementation to support the batch system for correspondence clerks (browser based) went live in 2006 managing the first documents.

Since that time, many of the client’s bank systems have been brought into the icon Suite solution ­ embracing interactive processes as well as single, non-interactive document production.

The icon Suite solution is supported by a frontend browser, with backend JBOSS, Red Hat Linux, Oracle DB and Windows Server.

Client Benefits

• Increased efficiency - with process improvements delivering central administration of resources for document creation, including interactive, process-integrated web applications as well as traditional batch
• New services and initiatives have a faster time to market since changes to documents now take place with minimal  IT involvement and inter-departmental QA is enabled
• Cost savings - as significant staff time to update and maintain the central template repository is greatly reduced
• Reduced time for correspondence delivery, with documents now produced centrally enhancing the printing, enveloping, stamping and shipping processes
• Reduced delivery costs due to postage optimization, mass production and e-media opportunities with fewer staff required