The prepaid market is one of the fastest growing payment card segments. According to predictions by Mercator Advisory Group, in the United States alone, the open-loop, branded prepaid market will experience an average annual market spend of US$28 billion, and the closed-loop, private label prepaid market US$171 billion between 2006 and 2009. This equates to 33 and 6% annual growth respectively. In addition, research by MasterCard estimates that spending on prepaid cards in Europe may reach US $120 billion by 2010.

Prepaid cards contain pre-loaded funds that cardholders can spend anywhere in the world where the card is accepted example a Visa or Master card will be accepted anywhere in the world where these cards are accepted. In recent years, prepaid and gift-card products like the Visa Prepaid card have increased significantly in popularity. From 2003 to 2005, the number of large merchants offering gift cards increased from 53% to 82% and spending on prepaid payment cards globally is expected to total more than US $720 billion by 2010.

An Opportunity to target the untapped debit card market
Prepaid cards provide banks an excellent opportunity to attract and retain clients, be it the untapped debit card market such as children or the clients who wish to have an additional card to enjoy convenience with security. Prepaid card products are most attractive to consumers who are:

E-Banking made its debut in UK and USA during 1960s and became prominently popular through electronic funds transfers and credit cards. The ATM is more than 40 years old now, with the first transaction being made at a branch of Barclays Bank in Enfield, London, on June 27, 1967. Since that time, ATMs have gone from being an exciting new technology to a tried-and-trusted part of banking infrastructure. From 1967, when the very first ATM was installed in London, it took 33 years for the industry to reach the 1 million mark. To reach 1.5 million, it has taken the industry only six years- that sure puts the phenomenal growth of the ATM industry into perspective.

Improved services, greater penetration
Expansion of alternate delivery channels to distant cities and villages has enabled banks to penetrate deeper into Pakistan’s socio economic system by offering various standard and novel e-banking services from tier 1 to tier III cities. With the launch of biometric ATMs and inter bank funds transfer via POS terminals, banks have been able to reach out to the un-banked population of grass-roots in Pakistan.

The several advantages of e-banking to the financial institutions include lower transaction costs, 24 hour services availability, expanded business territory and dramatically increased operational efficiency in day to day business. The obvious advantages to the consumer are convenience and flexibility on top of powerful and user-friendly financial management tools.

Strengthening channels, emergent trends
E-banking is flourishing in Pakistan as reflected by a 32% growth witnessed in it last year, said a report prepared by the State Bank.

Within the local banking sector, Allied bank has the largest ATM network with over 465 ATMs. Its nearest competitors are UBL and HBL, having ATMs of over 330 ATMs. 1LINK, the largest shared ATM network in Pakistan, is a consortium of 27 major banks, catering to a network of around 2771 ATMs in Pakistan.

According to a report titled ‘Retail Payment Systems of Pakistan paper-based and e-banking) of the State Bank of Pakistan, a total of Rs124.6 million e-banking transactions were recorded valuing Rs13.9 trillion during the last fiscal year (2008), showing a growth of 25.4% in numbers and 32.3% in amount when compared with the fiscal
year 2007.

During FY08, the volume and value of e-Banking channels (POS, Internet & call centre/IVR, and mobile) transactions in the country reached 20.0 million and Rs120.1 billion, depicting an increase of 15.6% in numbers and 31.9% in value as compared to 46.0% in numbers and 63.8% in value in the previous fiscal year.

According to the report, the quantity of active in-use debit / credit cards during FY08 reached 6.7 million, which shows an aggregate growth of 15.8%, compared with a 53.7% increase in the previous fiscal year.

The quantity of credit cards has in fact decreased by 8.9% as compared to 74% increase in the previous fiscal year, reaching 1.5 million.

In contrast, the debit cards registered a growth of 24.7 per cent as compared to 45.3% increase in previous fiscal year and stood at 5.0 million. Out of a total of 6.73 million cards, 0.391 million cards are chip based which is 5.81% of the total cards. Currently there are only a few banks which are issuing smart cards.

The report pointed out that the total number of ATMs during FY08 stood at 3,121, registering a growth of 21.0% as compared to 17.0% increase in the previous fiscal year.

The volume of Real Time Online Branches (RTOB) during FY08 stood at 5,282 and recorded a growth of 26.4% as compared to 5.0% decline in the previous fiscal year.
The volume of Point of Sales (POS) stood at 55,853, showing a growth of 21.0% in number as compared to 4.0% increase in the previous fiscal year.

According to the report, during FY 08 the volume and value of ATM transactions in the country reached 67.9 million and Rs453.0 billion, showing an increase of 31.8% in numbers and 43.2% in value as compared to 47.1% increase in numbers and 49.9% in value in the previous fiscal year.

ATMs are commonly used for small value cash withdrawal. ATMs usage for Intra-bank and inter bank funds transfer is increasing compared to the previous quarters with the value of such transfers reaching Rs. 13.125 billion, depicting an increase of 25.6. The inter-bank fund transfer is only offered by 11 banks on 1Link switch.

There are few banks which offer transactions through mobile. These transactions include payment through mobile (excluding utility bills payment), account to account funds transfer and 3rd party funds transfer.

Continuous innovations & future prospects
With a large unbanked population of 62 % in Pakistan, biometrics, branch POS and mCommerce is expected to emerge in future. Making e-Banking and e-Payments more affordable to banks and their clients in unbanked areas is still a major challenge, which has started to be addressed very recently with the launch of Biometric ATMs, mCommerce and funds transfer facilities via POS to the unbanked population of Pakistan. With the right checks and balances in place, a lot more people will be able to move smaller quantities of payments a lot quicker through various delivery channels such as the telecom infrastructure.

The use of credit cards has decreased by 8.9 % in FY 2008, whereas debit cards grew by 24.7 %. The use of prepaid cards will increase as compared to the credit cards due to the shrinkage in paying power of people. The prepaid card market is one of the fastest growing payment card segments.

Today, financial institutions are facing a dynamic enemy in their fight against fraud. Fraudsters are becoming more experienced and ever increasing number of fraudulent techniques are being developed every day. The explosion of electronic commerce, combined with a growing concern about customer relationship and satisfaction, has forced institutions to reorganize the way they monitor potentially fraudulent transactions. Unfortunately it is not enough to be quick in response, today's situation calls for more proactive rather than reactive measures. As criminals specifically target unprotected organizations, it has become imperative for financial institutions to have a responsive and “future-proof” fraud monitoring and management solution.

Infras is the next generation integrated, intelligent fraud detection and risk monitoring solution for issuers and acquirers of debit, credit and other types of payment cards which can operate in real time.

The product is scrupulously designed to address the issue of fraud detection, prevention and to ensure proactive risk management. The most powerful feature of Infras is its flexible Rule Generation User Interface. An Infras user can monitor scenarios like: number of incorrectly entered PINs, cash withdrawal limits per given time period, cumulative, consecutive and single transaction amount limits, limits on a total amount spent in a given time period, number of transactions in a given time period, number of transactions at a single terminal, various time limits for completing certain actions/transactions, transaction limit, transactions done in a risky country or a risky merchant category, transactions from a specific card number etc.

Infras offers many features, some of which are:

Bank Melli Iran (BMI), also called National Bank of Iran, has opted for Phoenix for its ATM and debit card program for its branches in Oman. Being the first national Iranian bank, BMI is now the largest commercial retail bank in Iran with over 3300 branches and 43,000 employees.

To keep up with the competition and to cope up with the rapidly changing market dynamics, Bank Melli Oman decided to migrate to Phoenix switch from its existing transaction platform. The previous already running switch architecture did not offer the flexibility of enhancing or incorporating feature rich services over the alternate delivery channels for its customers in Oman. Phoenix was selected among the world class solutions, because of its flexibility, time to market the solutions and the functionalities of Phoenix which range from the ATM switch to the integrated delivery channel manager.

Switch migration, being a complex and a multi-pronged activity will be divided into several stages to make the entire process seamless and to ensure that the banks customers face no interruption in the services.

Phoenix, as a unified ATM controller and a debit card switch, will initially work as an ATM controller and integrated delivery channel manager besides providing deposit functionality through the cash deposit machines while in the later phases it will also provide EMV acquiring. The uniqueness about the cash deposit functionality will be that it will offer card- less deposit automation which means that any customer walking in to use the cash deposit machine will be able to do so without the need for a card and also that the deposit functionality will be incorporated into the banks self service infrastructure, Phoenix. The scalable and modular design of Phoenix will enable the bank to add new services and delivery channels as and when required.

Today’s competitive banking landscape and mature customers demand world class services while ferocious competition stresses the need for service differentiation. Soneri bank committed to service excellence and technological advancements, has a wide array of innovative services depending on advanced systems. To ensure continuity of its mission critical applications and services, Soneri Bank implements, for the first time in Pakistan, Disaster Recovery Solution making its entire core banking and Phoenix switch completely high available via Symantec’s Veritas solutions. This implementation makes Soneri Bank the first bank in Pakistan to have its core banking and Phoenix switch work in a clustered environment.

The bank’s country wide operations are controlled through two most critical systems namely the web based Online Centralized Core Banking application; and the Phoenix switch that controls the banks entire alternate delivery infrastructure. The bank has recently migrated to a new centralized core banking application which comprises of Retail Banking, Trade Finance, Corporate and Commercial Finance, Consumer Finance, Foreign Exchange & Treasury modules. Since even a few minutes of downtime of these mission critical applications is unaffordable and any data loss could be potentially catastrophic, ensuring end-to- end data protection and 24/7 availability of these systems now ensures smooth enterprisewide remote banking operations.

With this contingency plan in place, Soneri Bank is now shielded from the catastrophe of system failures. Clustering at Soneri bank, through industry's leading cross- platform clustering solution, Symantec Veritas Storage Foundation, ensures high availability of mission critical applications and systems, particularly Phoenix switch and core banking host, with ideally zero data loss; thus ensuring business continuity, uninterrupted services to bank’s customer, and measurably greater visibility, control and flexibility over Soneri’s mission critical applications and storage environment. The robust and reliable solution provides data consistency and integrity at primary as well as disaster recovery site.

The biggest challenge encountered during the implementation process was to maintain continuity of the e-Banking services at the bank and existing alternate delivery channels. TPS sound technical resources ensured smooth flow of normal operations during the cutover through proactive management of the migration process.

Bank Saderat Iran, one of the largest privately owned bank in the region operating 3248 branches, has selected Phoenix to manage its complete ATM and debit card program in Oman. TPS has been selected by BSI through its reseller, Al Madina, a leading provider of magstripe card personalization services to major banks in the country.

At BSI Oman, TPS will serve as a one window solution provider for its hardware, software, ATM, consultancy as well as project management needs. Phoenix was selected as the ATM switch and alternate distribution manager among the other world-class solutions in the market because of its flexibility, scalability, and reputation in the Omani market. Phoenix has already been successfully running in HBL Oman and its flexibility and success in Oman sets an example for many other banks.

Phoenix will work as a unified ATM controller and a debit card switch. The implementation of Phoenix will provide a robust and flexible platform enabling the bank to add various value-added services through ATMs and other alternate delivery channels, while maintaining a single interface to their back-end and core banking systems.

Azizi Bank, one of the largest banks in Afghanistan operating under the ownership of the Azizi Hotek group, has recently inked a deal with TPS for its ATM and debit card program. Azizi Hotek group has its daughter companies in 10 countries of the world with overall number of 5450 employees with 38 branches operating under the Azizi Bank.

Azizi Bank has a strong focus on being a technology driven bank and has recently embarked upon the process of setting up its own ATMs to allow its customers a wide variety of convenient e-Banking services round the clock. For this purpose, Azizi Bank has selected TPS Phoenix that will become the bank’s e-Banking infrastructure, while also taking advantage of the complete remote banking monitoring solution, Insight.

ACCeSS, debit card issuance solution will be managing the bank’s complete debit card personalization and management program. Moving forward, the bank also plans on issuing and acquiring EMV cards. With this implementation, the bank will enable its customers the facility to conveniently access their funds via a variety of alternate delivery channels. In addition, the bank will also provide Visa & MasterCard facilities and hence enable its customers to enjoy the benefits and convenience of Debit and ATM cards.

Today’s competitive banking landscape and mature customers demand world class services while ferocious competition stresses the need for service differentiation. Soneri bank committed to service excellence and technological advancements, has a wide array of innovative services depending on advanced systems. To ensure continuity of its mission critical applications and services, Soneri Bank implements, for the first time in Pakistan, Disaster Recovery Solution making its entire core banking and Phoenix switch completely high available via Symantec’s Veritas solutions. This implementation makes Soneri Bank the first bank in Pakistan to have its core banking and Phoenix switch work in a clustered environment.

The bank’s country wide operations are controlled through two most critical systems namely the web based Online Centralized Core Banking application; and the Phoenix switch that controls the banks entire alternate delivery infrastructure. The bank has recently migrated to a new centralized core banking application which comprises of Retail Banking, Trade Finance, Corporate and Commercial Finance, Consumer Finance, Foreign Exchange & Treasury modules. Since even a few minutes of downtime of these mission critical applications is unaffordable and any data loss could be potentially catastrophic, ensuring end-to- end data protection and 24/7 availability of these systems now ensures smooth enterprisewide remote banking operations.

With this contingency plan in place, Soneri Bank is now shielded from the catastrophe of system failures. Clustering at Soneri bank, through industry's leading cross- platform clustering solution, Symantec Veritas Storage Foundation, ensures high availability of mission critical applications and systems, particularly Phoenix switch and core banking host, with ideally zero data loss; thus ensuring business continuity, uninterrupted services to bank’s customer, and measurably greater visibility, control and flexibility over Soneri’s mission critical applications and storage environment. The robust and reliable solution provides data consistency and integrity at primary as well as disaster recovery site.

The biggest challenge encountered during the implementation process was to maintain continuity of the e-Banking services at the bank and existing alternate delivery channels. TPS sound technical resources ensured smooth flow of normal operations during the cutover through proactive management of the migration process.

Another first from United Bank Limited (UBL) - this time, it’s Visa Prepaid Debit Card, named UBL WIZ. Prepaid Debit Cards, open up for UBL, the entire bankable population of Pakistan whereby WIZ cards can be obtained by any person no matter which bank he or she has account in and even if the person is unbanked.

The prepaid card with VISA brand gives its cardholders the luxury of using the card anywhere in the world for shopping, making online payments through internet, as well as for cash withdrawal. It’s a card that perfectly matches the lifestyles of various customer segments.

Building upon customers understanding of the prepaid card, UBL WIZ enables the customers to tailor their spending or withdrawal limits, as per their needs. After quick and easy card issuance process from any of the hundreds of bank branches, customers can reload their prepaid cards any number of times to enable them to spend up to the amount that has been pre-deposited into the account. To cater to the needs of untapped Pakistani debit card market and to suit the increase in customer’s mobile lifestyle, UBL now targets a whole new customer base, by issuing the prepaid cards for its account holders and non-account holders alike.

With only 8% of the entire population of 170M people that are banked, prepaid cards are being considered to help banks penetrate the huge unbanked population with its convenient issuance process, spend upto limit concept, acceptability at millions of merchants and hundreds of thousands of ATMs and documentation of spending.

This innovative service offers WIZ cardholders safety, security and convenience simultaneously. The owner of UBL Wiz card can travel freely and securely without the need to carry cash in wallet. Whether it is used online or at outlets, money is directly deducted from the card balance, without the need to visit the bank. The cardholder can withdraw cash from any of over 350 UBL ATMs or from more than 3200+ ATMs across Pakistan and from more than 2 million VISA ATMs in 150 countries in stores or online, in Pakistan and abroad. Issued instantly at any of UBL’s branch, customers have a choice of choosing from nine different designs, with the flexibility of different spending and withdrawal limits.

“The Pakistani debit card market remains largely untapped especially with regards to retail spend; and as growing number of customers adopt a mobile lifestyle and secure internet transactions; UBL WIZ is poised to facilitate them in numerous ways. UBL Wiz targets a whole new customer base and brings into the banking fold the unbanked population of Pakistan particularly women, youngsters and both domestic and international travellers.” Said Mr. Najeeb Agrawalla, Group Head - Marketing & Sales, UBL.

The uptake of electronic banking is growing exponentially and will continue to do so. Rapid use of Internet has opened the possibility for banks to bring their services to customers at their finger tips anytime, anywhere, while improving the bank’s efficiency and revenue growth.

A complete retail and corporate Internet banking solution
With that view in mind TPS took the initiative and introduced PRISM back in 2001 as a retail Internet banking solution. With its commitment to provide excellent, high performance services with enhanced security features to its customers, TPS continuously improves and extends its products keeping in mind its customer’s feedback.

With years of experience and expertise built into PRISM, the new version, PRISM 2.0, is now on the rampage. PRISM 2.0 is a complete retail and corporate internet banking solution with enhanced architecture, additional security features and more user-friendly interface to further boost the performance and potency of the solution. Having being evaluated by world- renowned agencies like Bearing Point (KPMG Consulting), Ernst & Young and Rewters, PRISM 2.0 has stood through its penetration test for third party security review.

Achieve greater flexibility and Scalability with the newly enhanced architecture and robust platform
PRISM is a true n-tier application with each tier delivering a specific set of functionalities and seamlessly interacting with the layer directly above and below it.

PRISM has now been divided into two major components, the Integrated Web Portal Framework (Front-end) and the Back-Office Management Application (Back-end). The processing engine acts as a bridge between front end tiers and PRISM backend transaction authorization systems. This layer is loosely coupled with the front end tiers enabling changes in the front end of PRISM without impacting the processing engine and backend transaction authorization processing. This layer makes it transparent for the backend systems for any changes at the presentation layer thus making it a true separator of front end and backend systems. Based on the latest Microsoft .Net Technology, PRISM’s client server architecture allows the solution to be very flexible, scalable, and extremely easy to maintain and operate.

PRISM seamlessly integrates with any middleware, with the support of ISO-8583 message interface. PRISM also supports variety of interface protocols like Web Services, MQ, and ODBC Connect to interface with any external system.

The presentation tier is a mix of highly interactive and user friendly ASPX (Microsoft .Net based dynamic web-pages) and HTML (static web-pages). Any standard compliant browser like Firefox, Safari, Opera etc. can view these web pages.

Offset malicious cases of fraud with new and effective security features
With the rapid growth in the use of internet banking, banks are concerned with the challenge of offsetting the risks associated with conducting business in cyberspace. Sound management of banking products and services is fundamental to maintaining a high level of public confidence not only in the individual bank and its brand name but also in the banking system as a whole. To combat those threats and ensure that e-business transactions are not compromised, TPS has incorporated additional security features in PRISM.

Permit only authorized personnel to transact with Two Factor Authentication
Prism now supports dual factor authentication for performing transactions through DSS two-factor authentication to ensure that only authorized users can gain access to highly sensitive information and transact securely. This hardware token (2 Factor Authentication) technology is in collaboration with its technology partner Data Security Systems Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (DS3). The dual factor authentication requires the user to enter username and password along with a hardware token generated pin for verification which changes periodically. This eradicates the risk posed by ever increasing network sniffing utilities such as tcpdump or phishing tools from the Internet.

Evade phishing attacks through Two-way Authentication
PRISM offers an enhanced security process of two-way authentication to offset Phishing. Under two-way authentication, the customer is required to prove their identity to the bank's web site and the web site must prove its authenticity to the user.

Secure password from key loggers through Partial Password Verification
HTTPS encrypted passwords etc will all go in vain if client browser computer has a key logger. To prevent this, the password is entered into PRISM in a way that only some random characters from it are keyed.

Prevent automated computer bots from login attempts through CAPTCHA Test
CAPTCHA Test is introduced in PRISM to prevent automated computer bots from performing fake registrations and login attempts. Users are required to enter text from human readable image (a set of numbers and letters from a distorted image) to make sure the entity sitting behind the client browser is not software. This feature would create an additional layer that will prevent the denial of service attacks to block bombardment of requests on to the website which will strain the network and exhaust its capability to respond.

Eliminate keyboard key presses recording through the Soft Keyboard in PRISM
To eliminate the chance of keyboard key presses recording and logging, PRISM provides a soft keyboard on the website. The user will be requested to enter the user name and password by clicking on the keyboard look alike on the screen. This ensures that any user verification information that is being inserted by the customer can not be recorded or logged.

With growth arises the need for space. TPS is pleased to announce that due to its increased space requirements, the company has moved to larger premises, situated at an easily accessible and strategically-placed location off Sharah-e-Faisal. Spread across 8 levels, the new building has been named TPS Tower and provides a superior and comfortable working environment that TPS was looking for.

Tameer Micro Finance Bank, one of the first micro finance institutions in Pakistan and an aggressively growing organization, launches the Inter-bank funds transfer facility on its POS network via 1LINK.

Tameer is the first micro finance bank to use alternative technology-based channels to reach out to the un-banked population of grassroots in Pakistan. This imparts a full spectrum of banking service to customers through the innovative use of POS terminals and ATMs.

Tameer Bank initially launched the debit card program and joined the 1LINK network for wide spread financial reach to its growing customer base. After this nationwide launch of Tameer on the 1LINK network, Tameer customers can access their bank accounts from 3100 Plus ATMs across Pakistan round the clock.
Moving beyond the basic cash dispensing facilities, the bank has taken new initiatives to automate its deposit function. Being a micro-finance bank, an efficient and effective loan collection mechanism is of significant importance. To ease and reduce the hassle of traveling up to the branches, Tameer kicked off the loan collection process through POS. With this facility, customers make payments by just swiping their debit cards at the POS terminals that are easily accessible through the agents in these remote areas.

Taking another forward step, Tameer has also launched the Inter bank funds transfer facility through POS.

With this launch, customers can transfer funds from any of their banking account to other over the POS networks available conveniently through agents in the unbanked areas.

“Tameer Bank is always looking for ways to serve the masses better and alleviate poverty in Pakistan’s micro-sector. Since inception, Tameer has a keen focus on customer-oriented products and services and leveraging on technology to provide innovative e-Banking services in the unbanked areas. The deposit automation facilities will ensure that our end-customer experiences world-class banking services that are easy to use and beneficial for their exact needs whereby they will be free from the hassle of traveling up to the branch and standing in queues to make deposits.” Said Mr. Ali Abbas, Group Executive Director, Tameer Bank.

InSight, a web based ATM monitoring and management solution from TPS, is successfully running at over 85 banks locally and globally. Built upon the success of the solution, customer reviews and feedback, TPS released an upgrade version, Insight 3.2, with effective enhancements in its reporting and monitoring features. The release of InSight 3.2 has received outstanding encouragement and response from various banks and is now successfully implemented and running at HBL, UBL UAE and Saudi Pak.

This winning solution, enables the bank’s to remotely monitor, manage and intuitively display the state of health of ATMs connected to the network, while enabling suspect transaction resolution, reporting and quick and proactive alert notifications. Implementation of InSight 3.2 enables these banks to benefit from enhanced features like the dashboard view, ability to track ATM downtime due to power failure and many more innovative and useful feature. This enables the banks to monitor its ATM network more closely, with a one-window view and maximized accuracy of MIS reports. As a result, it enables the bank to boost customer services and operational efficiency.

“Understanding how a network outage affects someone’s ability to withdraw money signifies the value of comprehensive system management. A tighter and streamlined management of our key touch points becomes necessary to maintain and improve the quality of services to clients. InSight 3.2 gives Saudi Pak a single centralized view for procuring its ATM monitoring and management needs with newer, more innovative intuitive features and reporting tools that gives us the capability to track remotely what is happening from beginning to end, without the need for any manual intervention.” said Mr. Javed Yousuf Edhi, CIO, Head of ADC Operations, ITD, Saudi Pak Commercial Bank Ltd.

Pakistan Air Force-Karachi Institute of Economics & Technology efficiently organized a fabulous, nation wide 2-day mega IT event, ComBat, “The Computing Battle”. Continuing its motion to encourage IT initiatives and development in Pakistan, TPS sponsored the event Combat 2008, held on 23rd & 24th August.

This full day event consisted of programming, gaming competition, hardware and software exhibition.

The event was an unusual success attracting over 1000 visitors and comprehensive media coverage through major electronic and print media. A record 326 participants contested four competitions through 112 teams with 13 teams being winners. 11 sponsors with an astounding total of 300 banners and branding opportunities added colour and commercial value to the event. The chief guest, Mr. Qamar Zaman Kaira – Federal Minister for IT encouraged the students with his presence in the closing ceremony on 2nd day amidst high security alert in the city.

ComBat’08 was by far the most impressive event organized by computer science society at PAF-Kiet-main campus that involved students from all corners of Pakistan. Highly qualified and well-read scholars as well as professionals from various fields judged the projects, keeping the competition fair and challenging. Well-known government officials, distinguished industrialists, businessmen and researchers visited to witness the IT expertise of the youth of Pakistan.

The nation’s leading career exhibition and job fair, PASHA Career Expo 2008 was held at Marriott Hotel, Karachi on July 20, 2008. The full day event offered rich vocational insight and professional corporate aura and thus attracted massive audience. The lead national sponsors of the event included multinational organizations like Intel and Microsoft.

The flourishing exhibition not only had job fair to its credit, but also constituted comprehensive workshops and vivid panel discussions by the industry gurus; followed by immensely practical and useful career counseling by company CEOs, addressing the current issues commonly encountered by the new job force. Then there were special interest group discussions, for the expert techies and software cheetahs that were full of technical knowledge and latest versions and techniques updates. The “startup Insiders” session was a mega success, where current industry leaders shared their experiences and answered questions, posed by aspiring entrepreneurs and enthusiastic young startups.

TPS actively participated in the P@SHA career expo, P@SHA, interviewing over a 100 candidates and counseling above 30 across the range of professions comprising software development, quality assurance, technical support, business development, human resource, finance and many more. The entire TPS family was aptly represented through its key persons from different departments and some 600 visitors visited TPS booth only.

Allied Bank has launched Visa labeled Debit Card using 1-Link connectivity. With a Visa card in hand, Allied Bank’s customers now have the convenience of accessing their funds and making payments from over 27 million point-of-sale (POS) and from more than 1 million ATMs in 170 countries.

Looking into the future, Allied Bank also plans to acquire all Visa branded cards on its network of onsite and offsite ATMs spread all over Pakistan.

“We are delighted to have partnered with TPS on this important initiative. Consumers around the world are increasingly looking at innovative payment products for convenience, security and flexibility,” said Mr. Asim Tufail, Group Chief, Consumer & Personal Banking Group, Allied Bank and added: “The launch of Visa debit program enables our customers to access their deposit-account and make payments 24/7, wherever they live. Allied Cash+Shop Visa debit card holders thus enjoy greater convenience, unhindered by geographical boundaries, time zones or banking hours.”

Allied Bank is one of the largest banks in Pakistan with over 760 online branches located in more than 300 cities and towns. Allied Bank leads the way by driving the largest ATM network of over 460 ATMs in Pakistan and continues to offer convenient and innovate services through its diverse choice of alternate delivery channels.

The revived branding strategy of TPS makes leaps and bounds with the improved, fresh and new look website!!! That’s right! Make sure you check out our amazing and infor- mative website at www.tpsonline.com

There you can find more about events & happenings at TPS and even read all that’s has been done so far to shape the e-Banking around the globe. You can also check the latest product releases and get expert opinion on how to upgrade your e-Banking infrastructure. With many thanks to our valued customers, there are endorsements of TPS differentiating technology and project successes rate!

The website is an information portal for all people connected to and working for e-banking & e-payment providing up to date information on all aspects of the financial technology. Case studies will just make that simpler for you! Updated text, enhanced graphics, increased navigatibility and wealth of organized & categorized information are all there to turn you stay at the website a pleasure more satisfying.

While you are on net, make sure you check out “Latest at TPS” and “Partners” pages. There, as the rest of the website, you will find links to the industry’s top-notch solution providers we are partners with.

Lastly, don’t forget to check our new address! Yes, that tall and cool building in the picture is where we have recently moved!

Standard Chartered Bank (Pakistan) Limited has seamlessly migrated to Phoenix switch from CR2 Sparrow. As the largest and fastest growing international bank in Pakistan with 162 branches spread across 41 cities, the bank now has Phoenix as a transaction platform that enables the alternate distribution channels.

SCB, after acquiring Union Bank in Pakistan, had decided to move to a switch that can help it maintain a competitive advantage in the market. The bank had three options: 1) to outsource the ATM switching functions to EuroNet where most of the countries in the group had been going. 2) If switch was to be in-house, upgrade Sparrow to its latest version. 3) To implement Phoenix.

After a lengthy evaluation phase and due diligence, the bank selected Phoenix as the switch for consolidating its remote banking operations. Prior to the merger with Union Bank, SCB was using an older version of CR2’s Sparrow and Union was using Phoenix to drive its e- Banking services.

Besides serving as an ATM switch and an integrated delivery channel manager, the bank is benefiting from TPS’ comprehensive monitoring solution, CMS and reconciliation system. Switch migration of a large and complex bank like SCB, being a multi-pronged activity, was divided into several stages.

The biggest challenge encountered during the migration was to maintain continuity of the e-banking services at the Bank and existing alternate delivery channels. Phoenix ensured that the Bank’s customers do not face disruption in the services during the change from Sparrow to Phoenix. The smooth migration brought the alternate delivery channels of ex-Union and SCBPL together; creating one single real-time financial transaction processing system, and giving to the customers a single and unified view of the entire SCB’s alternate delivery channels.

Phoenix, implemented as a uni?ed ATM controller and a debit card switch, is acting as Debit CMS, Visa debit cards issuer, acquirer of Visa and MasterCard cards and ATM controller and the integrated channel manager. It’s scalable, modular design enabled the bank to integrate the ATM channel onto a single platform - and add various new services and delivery channels as and when required - while managing the ever-increasing transaction volumes.

Phoenix was selected over the options, each of which are world class solutions, because of the ?exibility it offers, the cost-effectiveness inherent to the local company, time to market the solutions and its functionalities.

Besides serving as an ATM switch and an integrated delivery channel manager, the bank is bene?ting from TPS’ comprehensive monitoring solution, CMS and reconciliation system. Switch migration of a large and complex bank like SCB, being a multi-pronged activity, was divided into several stages.

The biggest challenge encountered during the migration was to maintain continuity of the e-banking services at the Bank and existing alternate delivery channels. Phoenix ensured that the Bank’s customers do not face disruption in the services during the change from Sparrow to Phoenix. The smooth migration brought the alternate delivery channels of ex-Union and SCBPL together; creating one single real-time ?nancial transaction processing system, and giving to the customers a single and uni?ed view of the entire SCBPL’s alternate delivery channels.

Phoenix, implemented as a uni?ed ATM controller and a debit card switch, is acting as Debit CMS, Visa debit cards issuer, acquirer of Visa and MasterCard cards and ATM controller and the integrated channel manager. It’s scalable, modular design enabled the bank to integrate the ATM channel onto a single platform - and add various new services and delivery channels as and when required - while managing the ever-increasing transaction volumes.

Three of the most progressive banks in Sudan, namely, Al Shamal Bank, Animal Resources Bank and Saving & Social Development Bank, have implemented the ATM camera and electronic journaling solution, EYE/EJ, for effective transaction dispute resolution. The implementation of EYE/EJ has made its way in the Sudani banks
through TPS’ reseller, Transtech, a leading ATM service provider, offering hardware, software and other automated banking solutions.

With increasing transaction volumes, effective dispute resolution has become more challenging. Inter-bank transaction disputes, cash dispensing issues and frauds, all necessitates an effective solution for ATM transactions dispute resolution. TPS’ EYE and EJ, a standalone transaction camera and electronic journaling suite, is a true multi-vendor, comprehensive and complete solution to fulfill the need for a powerful method to resolve ATM transaction disputes with visual and transactional proof.

TPS’ EYE and EJ has no dependency on any of your self-service banking solutions and can seamlessly integrate with any brand of ATMs. With the implementation of EYE/ EJ, the banks are enjoying greater customer satisfaction, confidenceand a faster dispute resolution mechanism, along with increased operational efficiency and control.

TPS, leading provider of e-Payment and e-Banking solutions in Pakistan, is now Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. TPS has achieved Gold partnership level with Microsoft by demonstrating expertise in Microsoft technologies in the areas of web development and business intelligence solutions.

Microsoft Gold Certified Partners receive a rich set of benefits, including access to online trainings and technical support, giving them a competitive advantage in the marketplace. TPS’ closer association with Microsoft will enable TPS to offer better service offerings and solutions to the customers.

TPS selected Microsoft development platform for all its Windows based solutions and continues to invests heavily in R&D and trainings into Microsoft technologies to provide highest quality software solutions to its customers. This achievement is yet another step towards its greater achievements while enabling TPS to remain on top of the payment industry.

APICTA (Asia Pacific ICT Awards) is a high profile annual competition represented by the entire Asia Pacific region. Technology companies from countries like Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan participate in this event and the best products are selected based on their innovation, market potential and market impact. The competition is based on the principle of “Best among the Best” as it is amid selected IT companies of the region whose products have won a national award in their respective countries.

IRIS, the transaction platform from TPS, having won the national P@SHA ICT Award was nominated as one of the contestants in APICTA 2008. This event, held in Jakarta – Indonesia during 11th-16th November, had 134 nominations from 11 countries in the region for 16 categories. IRIS was nominated in the Tools & Infrastructure category as it provides a complete financial transaction processing infrastructure. Out of the 11 global competitors within its own category, IRIS was selected as the winner of the category for its feature, functionality and support to business growth.

TPS is proud of its achievement and for bringing recognition to Pakistan IT sector as producer of world class products and services.

About APICTA:
APICTA is a prominent annual Asia Pacific Information and Communications Technology (ICT) event (since 2001). It provides platform for innovators and entrepreneurs in the ICT sectors to benchmark their products with the highest international standards. The competition aims to stimulate economic and trade relations, technology transfer, business matching opportunities and as show case for invention and creation of ICT sector.

About TPS:
TPS is a leading provider of switching and payment processing related solutions and services to financial institutions worldwide. With over a decade of experience in the field of e-Banking, TPS successfully empowers the financial and self service infrastructure of over 100 financial institutions and telecoms in over 25 countries across South Asia, Pacific, Middle East/ Gulf, Europe and Africa.

Related Links:
http://www.pasha.org.pk/Pakistan-wins-3-Awards-at-APICTA-2008-pnews-page_151120081444.html
http://ciopakistan.com/2008/11/pakistan-wins-three-awards-at-apicta/
http://www.apicta.com

IRIS – The Next Generation Transaction Middleware and complete enterprise e-banking suite from TPS wins Pasha ICT Awards 2008 for the “Best Financial Application” category.

The 4th National Annual ICT Awards by P@SHA was held on October 31, 2008 at the Marriott Hotel in Karachi to distinguish and commemorate innovation in the Pakistan ICT Industry. Businesses from all the major cities of Pakistan actively chipped in by nominating their products for the highest honours. A highly competent jury comprising the most revered personalities of the sector screened through the nominations and picked the best as winners and Runners-up in each category.

The success of IRIS in such a competitive battlefield is a testimony to the TPS in-depth domain expertise and pioneering technologies. The complete alternate distribution channel manager, IRIS, provides unique value to customers by packaging and integrating product sets that match their individual needs and payment preferences and then delivering them through any channel they prefer free from time and geographical boundaries.

Key players from the IT and the corporate sector were present at the ceremony to acknowledge and applaud the creativity and ingenuity of the winners – including top executives from banks, multinationals, nationals and start-ups. Shahzad Shahid, heading the dynamic business growth of TPS worldwide, received the award on behalf of TPS.

1LINK now offers the powerful UBPS (Utility Bill Payment Solution) facility for its 29 member banks across all their electronic delivery channels. UBPS service, powered by TPS, allows 1LINK member banks to provide bill presentment and payment service to their customers, enabling them to capitalize on their individual and collective e-Banking infrastructure. With the success and popularity of this service, several utility companies in the electric, gas and telco sector have now interfaced with 1LINK some of which are SSGC, SNGPL, LESCO, KESC, Ufone, Warid. Currently 10 banks have signed up for the 1LINK-UBPS service as more banks are gearing up for certification.

Contrary to the widely practiced offline exchange of file based billing data, 1LINK now enjoys direct connectivity with the telcos, enabling bill payments instantaneously in online mode. This eliminates the need to wait for processing till the end of the day. Another benefit of direct connectivity is the instant top-up of mobile balance without waiting for any paper or digital vouchers. Customers can add airtime to their prepaid mobile phones of any pre-defined denomination by sending a top-up request via any alternate delivery channel. The UBPS facility enables bank’s customers to pay bills through a network of expanding alternate delivery channels, while taking advantage of paying bills of more and more utility companies boarding the 1LINK-UBPS bandwagon. Besides broadening the spectrum of bank’s remote banking services, it creates a firm revenue generating stream with enhanced enterprise-wide operational efficiency.

Having just one interface with 1LINK, which covers major utility companies, frees the banks from the hassle of individually interfacing with all. This centralized solution, where banks perform bill payment settlements only with 1LINK, eliminates trouble some one-on-one settlement with respective utility companies. The UBPS service not only benefits the banks but also the utility companies as the process of bill payments gets accelerated with more revenue, greater geographical coverage and centralized payment platform.

AL MADINA Development and Supply LLC , a leading IT solutions and services company in Oman, and TPS have signed a partnership agreement following which AL Madina will provide EMV cards personalization and production for banks in Oman.

Al Madina is a leading provider of magstripe card personalization services to major banks in the country. The business-savvy management of Al Madina has aggressive plans to create a differentiation through a range of e-Banking services focused on customer service, convenience and new streams

of revenue for the Omani banks. The partnership agreement of Al Madina with TPS will enable it to offer personalization of EMV cards through TPS comprehensive, scalable and cost-effective end-to-end EMV personalization solution, Sentinel.

Sentinel is a turnkey solution for migration of Magstripe cards to EMV cards. It ensures a smooth migration vis-à-vis managing chip encoding, EMV Data Preparation and integration with card personalization machine, having minimum integration effort with existing infrastructure.

It is an end-to-end solution that provides a comprehensive framework for the banks to issue EMV compliant chip cards from production, testing, personalization, to ATM and POS acquiring and instant branch issuance.

TPS and Faysal Bank achieved a milestone with the launch of Faysal Bank’s Visa branded debit cards using 1LINK connectivity. Offering various standard and advanced e-Banking services through its diverse alternate delivery channels, Faysal Bank continues to empower its customers with further convenience and enhanced customer services. Available to all Faysal Bank card holders, Visa debit card enables the cardholders to use their cards and access their funds locally and internationally at over 24 million point-of-sale terminals and withdraw cash from more than 1 million ATMs in 170 countries.

“Visa, being one of the largest payments companies, with nearly $3.8 trillion transacted on its payment platforms, has the widest acceptability that is second to none. Now Faysal Bank account holders have the power of accessing their accounts from more that 1 million ATMs in 170 countries. This is a testament to the growth and continued commitment to provide our customers with cutting edge and innovative services. ”
Mr Samih Khan - Head Payment Solutions & Product Development, Faysal Bank Limted

Qatar Telecom (“QTel”), one of Middle East’s fastest growing telecommunications company, broadens the scope of services on its bill payment machines in Qatar. Following its aggressive expansion plans and dedication to enhance its services and customer satisfaction,QTel has evolved beyond the traditional cash accepting bill payment to acceptance of payments through VISA and Master Credit cards on EMV-compliant ATMs.

QTEL plans to set up some 70 automated ‘Payment & Top-Up’ machines across the country by the year-end, and 150 such consoles
in the country by 2009. Through such fully automated machines, customers can view and pay bills, top-up their mobile balance or purchase multiple prepaid vouchers either by cash or credit cards on EMV-compliant ATMs, round-the-clock at their own convenience. The self-operated machines give instructions in both English and Arabic with customized Arabic and/ or English receipts.
These bill payment machines revolve around the strength and reliability of its switching technology, Phoenix, while InSight is being used for effective and real time monitoring of machines and Electronic Journal (EJ) to provide centralized dispute resolution.

TPS provides both switch-based and terminal resident cash deposit solution in the form of TPS switch “Phoenix” and deposit automation solution “SMARTdeposit”, to suit requirements of the varied customer base.

UBL launches deposit automation facility for its branches in UAE to enable both cash dispensing and cash deposit facility for its account holders and non-account holders alike. The deposit automation is put into action by incorporating the deposit functionality into the banks existing self-service infrastructure that is effectively managed by the switching technology, Phoenix.

Deposit automation at the bank will enable the bank’s customers to enjoy the convenience of depositing cash and cheques to their own accounts or any UBL account using their debit cards. Customers can also pay their credit card bills by depositing cash. In addition, UBL UAE has enabled cardless entry at its ATMs that will enable both the account holders as well as non-account holders to deposit cash and cheque to any UBL
account.

This implementation will enable UBL to provide value-added services for its customers in UAE. The benefit for the customer is that they are able to carry out transactions during non-banking hours whereas the bank will benefit from being able to focus on higher value services, given that simple deposit will be done real time. In addition to the robust deposit features, the bank will be able to capitalize on the strength and reliability of its existing switching infrastructure, Phoenix.

Looking forward, UBL also plans to roll out the deposit automation functionality for all its branches in Bahrain and Qatar as part of their continuous improvement strategy.

UBL has contracted TPS to provide end state ATM / Debit card platform for its branches in Yemen.

Phoenix, the middleware switch and integrated delivery channel manager, will integrate all the distributed hosts as an integral part of the e-Banking and e-Payment services infrastructure at UBL Yemen, accompanied by Access, InSight, EYE & EJ solutions from TPS; initially managing the entire ATM network of the bank besides the will connectivity with the the country’s shared ATM network and national switch. This implementation of Phoenix will provide the bank with a robust and flexible platform enabling it to add various value-added services through ATMs and other alternate delivery channels, while maintaining a single interface to their back-end core banking systems. ACCeSS, debit managing UBL Yemen’s complete debit card personalization and management program.

UBL Yemen has also selected InSight, the ATM monitoring and management solution and EYE/EJ, security camera and electronic journaling solution. These winning solutions, through enhanced remote monitoring and management platform, will enable UBL Yemen to closely monitor and manage its ATM network uptime, significantly boost customer services and increase operational efficiency.

UBL’s drive to offer innovative and advanced e-Banking services to its customers in Yemen reflects the bank’s focus on serving the newly expanded client base and recognition of the region’s continued economic growth prospects.

The rise in business transactions on the Internet, generally labeled as e- commerce, has been phenomenal in the past few years. Secure and robust services available 24x7, virtually unlimited geographical reach and unmatched customer convenience afforded by the facility have fuelled the growth. According to a report by Verdict, online retailing by 2011 will be worth about 28.1 bn pounds. Another report states that 50 % of all Internet transactions are made using a Visa card.

UBL is committed to continually serve its customer’s growing demands with technologically advanced and innovative services. UBL now empowers its Visa Wallet card holders for purchases on the internet. Packed with the power of VISA, this service facilitates the use of UBL Wallet card in situations where the physical card is not present. UBL customers now enjoy increased ease of use, wider acceptability, new levels of customer service excellence and convenience of accessing their accounts anytime and anywhere over the internet, while guaranteeing more protection from frauds. This unique service gives UBL the extra edge as debit cards issued by other banks in Pakistan are restricted to ATM and POS only.

“The last decade has seen exceptional growth in e-business and the launch of Internet purchases through UBL Wallet card is yet another ground- breaking service from UBL. We are proud to embrace the very latest in e-Banking services and add a new dimension to how our customers can access their accounts with unparalleled convenience, control and security."

Najeeb Agrawalla,
Group Head – Marketing &
Sales, United Bank Limited

To offer completely characterized self-service banking services to its customers in Bangladesh, HBL has chosen Phoenix, the transaction switching middleware and integrated delivery channel manager from TPS. Habib Bank Limited (HBL), one of the largest banks in Pakistan, has an extensive network of over 1425 branches in Pakistan and 55 international branches.

Bank Alfalah, a leading bank in Pakistan owned by Abu Dhabi Group, has awarded the contract to TPS for driving its countrywide Point of Sales network.

Bank Alfalah, a premier financial institution operating locally & internationality, provides the complete range of financial services to all corporate and consumer segments. The bank’s revolutionary credit card, free for life, and more than 22,000 POS terminals has crowned Alfalah as the largest issuer and merchant acquirer in Pakistan. Following aggressive growth plans in both cards issuing and acquiring, Alfalah has outsourced its credit card systems to First Data Corp, a global leader in electronic commerce and payment services.

TPS is honored to be selected as Alfalah’s technology partner for the bank’s merchant acquiring. With the solution in place, the bank’s credit card holders would enjoy various value-added services across all electronic delivery channels of the bank. Phoenix as a dependable e-payment solution will power the point-of-sale (POS) network of Bank Alfalah.

Soneri Bank Limited, operating nationwide through 90 branches and a comprehensive network of 99 ATMs, has contracted TPS to provide High Availability solutions ranging from centralized backup to clustered solutions. These solutions will proactively monitor the status of applications and resources to enable the bank to reduce services downtime. This indeed is a milestone for TPS and Soneri Bank as clustering of such critical servers will be done for the first time in Pakistan. TPS, being the Silver Partner of Symantec, has the business and technical expertise needed to analyze, design, implement and support Symantec solutions.

The bank’s countrywide operations are controlled through two critical systems, namely the web-based online centralized core banking software applications incorporating the retail banking, trade finance, corporate and commercial finance, consumer finance, foreign exchange & treasury modules; and the ATM switch. Since even a few minutes of downtime is unaffordable and any data loss could be potentially catastrophic, ensuring end-to-end data protection and 24x7 availability of these mission-critical systems is indispensable to the bank’s enterprise- wide remote banking operations.

Ensuring High Availability with Veritas Storage Foundation
TPS will execute clustering for bank’s critical applications through industry's leading cross-platform clustering solution, Symantec Veritas Storage Foundation. Monitoring the status, health & performance of the services and swiftly switching the services on another server in the event of a fault will greatly minimize application downtime, be it planned or unplanned.

Export Import Bank of Bangladesh, one of the progressive banks of the country, has contracted TPS to rollout its ATM and debit card program. The contract has been signed by International Acumen, TPS local reseller in Bangladesh. To power the complete financial delivery architecture, EXIM Bank has opted for TPS’ transaction processing switch and middleware, Phoenix.

Phoenix will act as EXIM Bank’s financial transaction switch and ATM controller. It will interface with the bank’s core banking application as well as the shared ATM switch of the country. With these interfaces in place, cardholders of EXIM Bank will be able to access most of the previously inaccessible ATMs in the country; thus providing EXIM Bank’s customers convenient access to their bank accounts 24x7.

In addition, Phoenix preserves a bank’s investment for future growth. It builds a strong framework for banks on which they can gradually or immediately deploy support for various delivery channels like ATM, IVR, Call Center, Point of Sale Network (at branches/merchants), Internet Banking, Cellular Banking and Bill Payments.

Cards Middle East is a highly focused and prestigious event that takes place every year in Dubai. This summit is the leading payments and transactions event in the MEA region and focuses entirely on issues, prospects and technologies in the field of whole sale and retail payments. The occasion is dedicated to emerging technology trends, innovative products, state of the art services and solutions related to card technologies and their usage for payment programs. Being the region’s premier retail banking meet, the event is attended by senior executives in card and payment industry, from the region and across the globe.