news
IBS Journal October 2015
Barclays launches ‘first of its kind’ cloud-based contingency payment service
Barclays has launched a ‘first of its kind’ cloud-based contingency payment service banking access channel. The new service, in partnership with
UK-based cloud-based payment and cash management provider Accesspay, will allow Barclays corporate customers to access an additional channel for managing payments if their primary channel is unavailable. Barclays says: ‘No UK bank has attempt-
ed to overcome the issues presented by contingency planning, beyond offering a fax service’. The bank says lack of access could occur
due to the ‘primary user unavailable’, a lost or damaged security token, or a client expe- riences an internet outage. Clients will also be able to start payments with a laptop sep- arate to their primary infrastructure via the new ‘Contingency Payment Access’ solution. The service is currently in pilot and the
concept was started back in May 2014. Harcus Copper, director, global digi-
tal client access at Barclays, says: ‘We’re not looking at disaster recovery or business continuity management. ‘We’re talking about a day-to-day sce-
nario where one urgent payment needs to get out the door.’
Farewell, fax! Previously, the humble fax would have been used, but as Copper points out ‘in modern society the fax pretty much doesn’t have a place anymore – it certainly shouldn’t do for much longer’. Copper was set the challenge a year
ago after some large corporate clients approached Barclays in terms of their con- tingency solutions. ‘The idea [for the new service] was my
own and we went to market in terms of a couple of potential technology partners we might like to help develop this.’ Accesspay came up with a ‘neat’ solution and built and hosted it ‘entirely’ for Barclays. Copper explains more behind the deci-
sion-making process. ‘We chose Accesspay as it faces to our
customers directly and offers cash manage- ment solutions. ‘It was the only vendor at the time that
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was playing with the new ASP [ application service provider] model from a Swift connectivity perspective. It had cash management and Swift expertise – the two key things we needed.’ ‘We did put it to other companies to
tender. They were all very strong, and one was considerably larger than Accesspay, but with large companies you tend to get large bills and slow times to delivery. ‘What Accesspay proposed very much
met my own designs – the company is also very fleet of foot in terms of delivery. ‘Accesspay is a relatively small com- pany and Barclays is keen to help smaller
© IBS Intelligence 2015
www.ibsintelligence.com
companies in the innovation space.’ Simeon Parker, head of banking at
Accesspay, says the project took about twelve months from the concept to pilot stage and delivery ‘was on time’. Accesspay was formed in 2012 and
already works in partnership with Barclays, providing a corporate connectivity propo- sition via the Swift network for corporate customers. Copper adds that customers don’t
pay any extra for this new service, apart from their normal electronic banking ser- vice fees.
Antony Peyton
Barclays HQ, London © C Ford, Wikipedia
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