GTS: technology, development and uptake
The GTS platform is built in Java. The aforementioned Vestima platform from Clearstream was built in Microsoft’s .Net, but when it came to building GTS, there was a unanimous preference of Java, commented Boland. The team regarded it to be more flexible, scalable and having a larger pool of resources and a well-established, professional open source community. GTS can run on any servers in an onsite deployed
environment, and there is also a SaaS version. An advantage of GTS, according to Boland, is its ability to integrate with internal systems of a financial institution, and then the financial institution can run it itself. GTS was built from the outset to sit beside large back office processing systems (e.g. Temenos, Fundtech) and ERP systems (e.g. SAP, Oracle) and so B2 put a lot of emphasis on integration. As part of this thinking, GTS was componentised, added Boland, as ‘chances are a bank already has some areas covered so would not want the entire suite’.
The system was built with an input from customers. ‘We have never subscribed to the idea of “build it and they will come”. We think it is a guaranteed recipe for bankruptcy,’ Boland stated. ‘All of the GTS functionality and components have been requested by our clients.’ The initial contributor to the development was Bank of America. Boland noted that B2’s acquisition of London-based TDI
Consulting in 2010 helped with gaining the deal. TDI was a niche consultancy firm specialising in corporate client onboarding and execution for banks. It had a wealth of experience in this area (17 of the world’s top 20 banks were on its customer list, including Bank of America) but it had no software of its own. TDI contributed its expertise and the B2 team configured its platform to create a solution for Bank of America. The first customer to use this solution was a European low-cost airline, Easyjet. Easyjet was looking to change its legacy banking services provider, RBS, and Bank of America bid for the deal with the GTS offering. The configuration of GTS to match the Easyjet requirements was completed within a tight timeframe of one month, Boland recalled. It was not a full suite of functionality, but enough for the Bank of America to win the deal. The project took place in mid-2011 and continues to be a reference site for B2. The software is provided on a SaaS basis and is hosted at B2’s data centre in Luxembourg. Another publicised customer of B2 is Svenska Handelsbanken. The bank uses PayEX, B2’s payment execution application that is underpinned by GTS. It sits in front of the core banking system and manages the postings of debits and credits. B2 looks after €9.3 billion of assets for the bank. PayEX was originally developed for Svenska Handelsbanken, and is also supplied to the bank on a hosted basis. The bank
did not want to touch its core system (it is understood that the quote from the core banking vendor to carry out the necessary modifications was too high), and contracted B2 to build a solution that would undertake all the required validation and preparation of data while the core system just does the accounting.
Although the developments have been done for specific clients, they are generic in their nature and can be applied to other institutions. The IP belongs to B2. There are exceptions when the vendor carries out bespoke work for its clients at their request, but the overwhelming majority of work is for the benefit of the wider market, stated Boland. ‘We are now talking to practically every major bank about new projects and our products are applicable to all of them, with a bit of tweaking.’ Also, the B2 team has been witnessing a drive towards standardisation among banks: ‘by and large they want quite similar solutions’, he said. The core code base of the B2 software is generic – so
there is one version of code – and this is enforced and strictly monitored at the company.
B2 has also participated in the Barclays payments software overhaul, which saw the bank investing over £170 million into building a new global payments hub based on Fundtech’s Global PayPlus (GPP). GTS integrates with GPP and does all the ‘upstream work’, such as file specification and transformation. In the UAE, First Gulf Bank is a client. GTS sits alongside
the Temenos T24 core banking system and automates FX confirmation at the bank, providing automated links between First Gulf Bank and FX trading venues. The system is supplied on a hosted basis. The project was carried out in 2010/11. Boland cited it as a successful example of collaboration with the core vendor, as ‘Temenos was happy for B2 to do this work as the FX confirmation wasn’t Temenos’ speciality’. B2 also has other providers as clients, like Accuity. B2 helps Accuity to extract information from SAP software. The vendor currently has 16 clients, half of whom are in
Western Europe, and the rest are in Africa and the Middle East. The ratio of onsite versus hosted deployments is 50/50, according to Boland. In February 2016, the company launched Multi-Bank
Integrator platform, an automated banking tool built specifically for corporate cash and treasury management. The solution that is built on GTS, integrates into existing ERP platforms and automates data entry between corporates’ banks, The portal provides insight into payments and other banking transactions, cash positions and real-time foreign exchange data by linking with all accounts and services from the banks that companies already use. While the solution was originally launched for its European customers, it was expanded to a number of African banks in March 2016. Later that year, B2 partnered with EBRC (European Business Reliance Centre) to offer Multi-Bank Integrator on the cloud.
Payment Systems & Suppliers Report |
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