Fully functional remote system for retail banking

The user interface (UI) of the Internet and Mobile bank should be beautiful, modern and user friendly. Moreover, the definitions of terms “beautiful” and “modern” are being updated rather frequently. New models of smartphones, new features of mobile OS are coming out, screen resolutions are changing. So, to stay in trend, it is necessary to update the RBS application appearance every year.

eKassir OBP includes standard out-of-the-box front-end applications: Internet bank web-application and native mobile applications for iOS, Android and Windows10. In the course of the project, they can be adapted to the Bank’s requirements (from simple color changing of the out-of-the-box version to fully custom implementation). We adhere to the following approaches in development of front-end applications to ensure that UI can satisfy even the most demanding requirements:

• Front-end applications do not contain business logic. They are responsible only for visualization. The development of front-end applications is completely separated from the platform. The Bank can connect any number of applications to the platform and develop them separately using Platform API. This approach allows bank to solve some business problems. For example, to ensure a smooth migration of their clients from an old application to a new one, or to test a business hypothesis by implementing a separate application with a new functionality for a limited group of clients.
• Internet bank application is developed with the NET.Core technology. The application supports content preloading and works really fast. You can test the application here.
• Mobile bank. Only native applications are used as they can provide the quality and speed of work at the market leader’s level. You can make a request for test access to mobile bank application.
• In mobile development, we try to use standard components and adhere to mobile system’s guidelines.
• JustInMind is used to develop UX. It allows you to quickly settle the UX prototype and final application design with the Bank.

When choosing a remote banking system, Bank is often interested what system functionality is available in out-of-the-box version. This relates to the list of services and their capabilities. The basic structure of services is more or less similar for all existing RBS, since the general requirements of banks are almost the same. However, it may be discovered that the specificities and details of how a certain service works are fundamentally different for different RBS system vendors. That’s why we will tell you a little bit more about some eKassir DPB services:

• Payments and transfers, recurrent payments. Payments and transfers are the most common services that Bank’s clients use. The Bank client’s satisfaction depends on the number of available services and how convenient it is to pay for them.
• Internet & Mobile bank come in integration with the Payments Hub solution. It allows the Bank to implement maximum possible functionality with out of the box solution including a recurrent payments service. eKassir OBP is certainly ahead of other vendors solutions from the payment functionality point of view.
• Ordering a card, applying for a new product, opening a deposit. Scenarios for ordering a new product or opening a deposit can be quite complicated. It may require input of a significant amount of client’s data, and in this case, some data can be auto-loaded from the system directories. In addition, it is necessary to provide a nice visualization of the script execution in different front-end applications.
  All such scenarios are considered non-financial in eKassir OBP. The scenarios are configured in eKassir Operation Studio and then processed in Payments Hub as payments or transfers. This approach allows bank to easily create the scenarios of any complexity and implement nice UI for these scenarios in front-end applications using various screen input methods (calculators, sliders, point selection on the map and so on).
• Advertising, marketing and personal offers. Internet and Mobile bank are used as a platform for advertising and selling other services. In the standard version, it just displays the advertisements and may collect customer leads. However, Internet marketing today requires more sophisticated approaches. It is necessary to take into account the end-user’s reaction to adverts, analyze ad views and construct a purchase funnel. This type of advertising may considerably increase sales. At the same time, the obsessive display of the same badly targeted advert with no attention to user’s reaction can be annoying.

Service allows you to adjust the start/end time of the advertising company, perform the content rotation, collect customer feedback, analyze lead time and purchase funnels. This functionality of eKassir OBP allows bank to promote its services efficiently.

• Other services. If you want to get more information about eKassir OBP basic services, contact us or ask for a demo-access to the Mobile and Internet Bank.

Mobile and Internet bank are the main front-line services constantly used by customers. There is a competition between banks for the convenience of using remote banking system, application functionality and new features. UI applications are regularly update. Client’s choice often depends on convenience and functionality of front-end applications. Therefore, it is critical to have opportunity to make quick changes in remote banking system, update interfaces and add new functionality.

Based on these considerations, it is better for the Bank not to be depend on the solutions vendor. The Bank’s specialists should be able to carry out modifications themselves. At the same time, it is important not to lose compatibility with the main version of the system and receive regular updates from the solutions vendor. Otherwise, the system may become obsolete after a while and the Bank will have to change it.

There are possibilities for self-customization while maintaining the compatibility with the out of the box version of eKassir OBP. The main points of remote banking system where improvements or changes are required the most:

• Interfaces of front-end applications. They are completely separated and interact with the server components via a standardized eKassir Platform API in eKassir OBP. Front-end applications do not contain any business logic. It allows the Bank to develop them independently or in cooperation. The number of additional Mobile and Internet Bank applications that can be connected to the eKassir Platform API is unlimited.
• New services. Internet & Mobile bank are built based on micro-service architecture. This means that almost any new functionality can be implemented as a separate micro-service. Micro-services have no limitations on the used technologies, also they are quite simple to develop and not require regression testing on the entire system before updating. This approach allows you to speed up the development and implementation of new functionality.
• A new payment or transfer recipient. Changing scenarios of existing payment services. All payments and transfers are executed in Payments Hub that is a component of OBP. You can configure any new payment or transfer in the eKassir Operation Studio by using it and run it quickly on clients. The complexity of setting up new payment or transfer and outputting it to a OBP is usually takes no more than eight man hours.
• Card order, an application for a new product, a deposit. Configuring of non-financial operation scenarios is performed from the eKassir Operation Studio interface. The script can contain various input methods, such as calculators, sliders, geo-targeting (selecting from the address list, selecting a point on the map), which look nice and modern in the interface of the client application.
• Integration with back-office systems. A significant part of the implementation of remote banking system is to integrate it with existing banking system. Generally, these works are performed by the vendor and there is no possibility of self-implementation.
  There is such possibility in eKassir OBP. The platform integration layer has a fully documented SOAP interface. The Bank can independently integrate and launch eKassir OBP if wished and has specialists. You will require only support and consultation from the vendor.
• Content management and personal offers. You can manage advertising content in eKassir OBP from the CloudAdNet service interface. It provides a mechanism for displaying targeted offers and collecting feedback. It does not require any modifications, only the settings. Places for content and targeted offers are initially provided in standard front-end applications. The service is fully functional as out of the box solution.

The most important metric of RBS is efficiency. The system should withstand overloading and be scalable. At the same time, RBS should be able to smartly cache the data from the bank’s back office systems, which may become unstable while working with peak loads. However, such problems cannot be solved by simple expanding the server capacities. The common problem for banks (especially those with large payroll projects) is the slow work or even collapse of bank’s RBS because of massive influx of customers on the payday. First, this concerns the Mobile bank because the clients use it more active and actually organize a sort of DDOS-attack by running the application under high load conditions.

There is a set of mechanisms for providing high load capacity and system efficiency in eKassir OBP. There are a linear scaling of components, multi-level data cache, and all requests optimization. In addition, Cash Control mechanism is implemented in eKassir OBP, which allows the system to work with no requests for each client’s data to ABS and other back-office systems. In any case of data changes, the back-office systems automatically apply to Cash Control API. All updates are saved in the OBP cache, so extra data requests are not required. This type of system architecture minimizes the number of requests and reduces back-office systems loading while the operation speed of client’s applications increases.

The efficiency issue may seem technical, but it has a direct impact on business rates and clients satisfaction with the bank’s services. The availability and operation speed depend on efficiency. It is sensitive characteristic; a lagging bank’s application will never get the high rating from the customers.

Moreover, the competent use of caching mechanisms in eKassir OBP allows bank to save their server capacities, which directly affects the service production costs.

Security is a matter of primary importance in any remote banking system.

We tried to deal with security problems in a comprehensive manner. There are some important aspects related to security that are worth paying attention to:

• eKassir Access Manager is the component specially designed for users authorization in the system. It is responsible for running the authentication and user login scenarios, sending confirmation codes, issuing security tokens and so on. This is the regular system component, which has been tested in large projects and checked by third-parties auditors. eKassir Access Manager allows bank to configure various user login scripts, use multifactor authentication, request online confirmation of an operation, and so on. These operations do not affect eKassir Access Manager’s core, only plug-ins and integration modules are changed. Out-of-the-box eKassir Access Manager supports modern security protocols: Open ID Connect, OAuth 2/0 and other. eKassir Access Manager is also used for the back-office employees authentication while their logging into the system. eKassir Access Manager easily makes the bank system compliant to all information security requirements with low labor costs.
• eKassir Identity Gateway is a regular system component, which allows to correctly configure DMZ and LAN bank networks, so that any data and service requests were treated as outgoing, from the internal network to the outside, and not vice versa. This is a standard solution that meets all information security requirements of the bank.
• There is the fraud prevention subsystem in eKassir OBP. It is integrated with Operation/Payments Hub and covers a significant part of the fraud prevention scenarios specific for the remote banking systems. It also can be easily integrated with any already existing bank’s anti-fraud system.
• All system components (including integration modules) are digitally signed. If the bank make changes in signed modules, they will not start. This provides control over the code swap of the executable system modules.

This is only the part of the implemented security measures. eKassir OBP has successfully passed security audit within the framework of a few large projects.

Modern remote banking system is not only about convenient applications and great functionality. It also should have a high-quality customer support service. Obviously, organization of customer support is not the RBS vendor’s concern, but the system should provide effective tool for the bank employee’s work. Members of the customer support team should be able to respond rapidly to system failure reports, quickly find problems, locate and eliminate them. For modern highly-loaded RBS, which is built with micro-service architecture approach, this may be a challenging task, and this task must be solved in advance.

There are list of the features eKassir OBP provides for organizing customer support:

• Built-in system monitoring. System monitoring is required to track the system’s health and business metrics in online mode. eKassir System Monitoring is built on open source solutions and standardly integrated with eKassir OBP. It allows bank to track the system metrics, such as processor, memory, network utilization and so on, and also the business metrics such as the number of transactions, user entries and unique user log-ins over a period. It supports the control of specific RBS technical and business characteristics, which is difficult to organize in standard monitoring systems. The example of system monitoring dashboard.
• Built-in log collection system. The built-in log collection system allows bank to quickly collect and save log files for all system components. It is also built on open source solutions and standardly integrated with eKassir OBP. The logs collector allows bank to track transactions with minimum efforts by a unique identifier assigned to each component in the system: from the front-end application to the back-end system gateway. The built-in log collection system helps to speed up the analyze of incidents and free up the human resources for solving other problems. The example of system monitoring dashboard.
• Internet bank “from outside” for the Bank’s support employees. This is web application for bank’s employees, which allows them to use the Internet bank in the same way as the customers use it. In fact, this is Internet bank adapted for the bank support specialists with the ability to log in on behalf of any client with limited rights in accordance with security requirements. It is easier for the support specialist to understand the client’s problem, when both of them are viewing the same interface. The application allows the bank’s support to instantly localize problems when the support team member and the bank client seem to have discrepancies in the data displayed in their bank’s back-end (ABS) and customer’s application.

The ability to serve customers in different channels, which looks as the single system (omnichannel system) is the basis of modern customer service. That is why integration of remote banking system with other channels (branches, ATMs, self-service kiosks, IVR, etc.) is necessary. If such functionality is not added on system design stage, implementing the omnichannel service scenarios may become the complicated task.

The simplicity of supporting the omnichannel service scenarios is one of the main advantages of eKassir OBP. Internet and Mobile bank are an integrated part of the Digital Banking Platform. OBP is designed so that the same set of services is shared by all front-end applications. Omnichannel and multichannel capabilities are architectural conception of the system. That’s why integration of eKassir OBP with other bank’s service channels is always easy.

• Unified payment templates for RBS and other front-end applications. Payment templates saved by the client in one of eKassir OBP service channels turn available in all other service channels adjusted to the channel peculiarities.
• Cash withdrawal via ATM by QR-code generated in the Mobile bank.
• Replenishment of the client’s account via ATM by QR-code generated in the Mobile bank.