Case Study

 

Bank Implements Encryption and Language Support Solution with Cleo TN3270, Avaya Interactive Voice Response (IVR), and Servion Financial Package.

Headquartered in the United States, a major banking corporation is in the process of expanding its global presence. One of the largest private sector banks in the world, it offers a wide range of financial products and services to customers in many countries.

As the bank expanded, it faced a challenge: The mainframes that stored its information needed to be accessed with user IDs and passwords; this information was displayed in clear text, posing a security risk. The bank also required local language support for its operations in Greece and Russia.

The bank approached Servion Global Solutions, Inc., a provider of Contact Center products, solutions and Systems Integration services, for help. Servion suggested a solution that combined its Financial Package with an upgraded Avaya IVR system and Cleo's TN3270.

The Challenge

The bank's existing configuration was front-ended by a Phone Banking system, built on an Avaya IVR platform. For Phone Banking applications, the IVR needed to access information on the IBM mainframes. The access process required user IDs and passwords, which were stored on the platform in clear text. This posed a security risk; potential hackers could read the passwords and gain access to sensitive and mission critical financial information.

The bank also required local language support for its operations in Greece and Russia. However, the IVR package was unable to traverse various screens (the host interface was effected using 3270 Screen Scrapping to avoid costly rewrites of mainframe applications). Instead the package got stuck at the initial screen, as there was difficulty in interpreting and understanding the Russian characters.

The Solution

The solution combines an upgraded Avaya IVR, the Servion Financial Package and Cleo TN3270.

The upgraded Avaya IVR includes a Universal Communication Server Model 1000 (UCS 1000), a high-performance computer that handles call processing and media services as well as standard operations, administration and maintenance. The server is designed to support the speech processing hardware and software that is used to develop an automated voice response system. The platform is robust, works on an industry grade server and is extremely scalable.
Servion's Financial Package handles banking, credit card and mutual fund transactions. Servion's expertise in the banking industry is built on its many achievements in the financial segment:

Voice response and computer telephony integration (CTI) solutions for over 100 financial institutions around the world that handle more than one million interactions per day.

Strategic alliances with premier core banking software vendors like i-flex, Infosys Technologies and FNS. Also, development of custom interfaces to many in-house core-banking products. This integration expertise helps in dramatically
reducing implementation cycles.

Testing and integration of solutions for Kapiti (core banking software).

Integration of solutions with Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) or cash machines like
Interlink, Diebold, NCR and Uswitchware for customer authentication and PIN Verification applications.

Custom integration of application with credit card management software like Vision Plus and Cards Pac. Vision Plus is used by more than 70% of all credit card companies managing customers' credit card transactions.

Cleo TN3270 is a software only solution designed for high-performance mainframe communications. With its support of up to 4,000 mainframe connections (LUs), high reliability and low CPU utilization, it's the perfect product for large, high-performance applications such as IVR and call centers.

Cleo TN3270 goes beyond standard TN3270 emulation. In addition to supporting LU Type 2 emulation between clients and host, it provides additional features not generally found in 3270 packages; these include:

Integrated into Avaya's IR Designer via standard host defined functions

Screen scrapping for quick identification of key 3270 screen data

Cleo DIP which manages all the mainframe sessions for the application

Automatic error recovery for host connections

LU naming feature that allows users to request a specific LU or LU pool from the host system

Full support of all IBM APIs including HLLAPI, LU 6.2, CPIC and LUA/LU 0

Custom DIP implementations

Encryption for passwords stored on the Avaya IVR system

Local language support

File transfers

Seamless Transition to a New System

Under Servion's guidance, Cleo and the bank discussed various encryption options for the information. Ultimately, they agreed on a solution where Cleo encrypted the user ID and password on the Avaya platform. The encryption feature met with the bank's stringent security requirements and was approved by its IT security administration team. Later, the bank requested an additional administration utility that, under software control, allowed the system administrator to change the password on the mainframe and in the IVR system. Cleo then extended its product to handle native keyboards and mainframe screens.

The project was completed within eight weeks. Servion delivered the complete solution. However, Cleo tested its enhancements directly with the bank. After the original installation took place, it was replicated in Greece, Turkey, Shanghai, Russia, UAE and Pakistan. Cleo provided some special consulting in each location to meet individual requirements.

Each bank operates in slightly different ways, with slightly different communications requirements. In the most recent installation in Shanghai, Cleo coordinated the efforts of the bank, Avaya and Servion to resolve a last-minute communications requirement by the customer. This resulted in the project being accepted after being on hold for several weeks.

The Solution at Work

The ROI varies from country to country. The greatest benefit to the bank was its ability to offer competitive services that had been impossible to deploy when the mainframe passwords were not encrypted. If the security issue had not been resolved, it would have been necessary for the bank to remove the IVR from production.

The upgraded IVR handles 55% of the calls completely (without the calls going to customer services representatives) and provides customer 24 X 7 access to information about their accounts. The system handles 35,000 calls per day - many more than the 25,000 calls it was projected to handle during the design phase.

K. Balakrishnan, President of Servion's U.S. Operations, explains, "Servion's experience in having executed phone banking projects across the globe has played a critical role in understanding specific customer requirements. Our understanding of customer dynamics in the banking industry helped us specifically address the security issue to make customer transactions more efficient and effective."

Don Redding, Vice President of Cleo, adds, "Cleo's ability to quickly respond to the Bank's request for encrypted passwords allowed the Bank to get approval for the project."

About Avaya

Avaya enables businesses to achieve superior results by designing, building and managing their communications networks. More than one million businesses worldwide, including 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500®, rely on Avaya solutions and services to enhance value, improve productivity and gain competitive advantage.

Focused on enterprises large to small, Avaya is a world leader in secure and reliable IP telephony systems, communications software applications and full life-cycle services. Driving the convergence of voice and data communications with business applications - and distinguished by comprehensive worldwide services - Avaya helps customers leverage existing and new networks to unlock value and enhance business performance. For more information about Avaya, visit www.avaya.com.

About The Avaya DeveloperConnection Program

The DeveloperConnection Program (DevConnect) is Avaya's main resource for providing customers the additional solutions they need that go beyond Avaya's current portfolio of applications. With hundreds of solutions to choose from, DevConnect members provide solutions that enhance the features and functionality of current Avaya offers. All DevConnect member solutions are proven reliable through extensive Avaya interoperability/compliance testing within Avaya Labs. This testing assures the customer that they will receive the same quality and satisfaction as they have come to expect from Avaya. For more information about the DeveloperConnection Program, visit www.devconnectprogram.com

About Servion

Servion Global Solutions, Inc. has revolutionized customer experience through its Contact Center suite of products, solutions and Systems Integration services. With a firm commitment to delivering consistent value to customers, Servion seeks to be the preferred global partner to enhance the Business Response Systems of organizations worldwide. Servion has successfully helped re-engineer the business response systems of corporations across sectors, including Banking & Finance, Insurance, Outsourced Contact Centers, Telecom, Government and Transportation. In each case, Servion's Business Response Solutions have helped to acquire, service and retain customers, while consistently increasing profits.

Servion utilizes the best-of-breed technologies, products and systems integration skills to develop product offerings and services that can be adapted to a range of businesses. These include:

Consultancy services

Business Response Solutions (End-to-end Contact Center solutions)

Systems Integration Services

Application maintenance service

Servion boasts of a global clientele of more than 200 customers and 500 installations worldwide. The company's products and solutions currently handle more than 15 million voice, fax, acd, web and email interactions per month.

Servion is a Value Added Reseller (India) and Business Partner (Australia/Singapore) of the Avaya suite of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions and self-service products.
For more information, visit www.servion.com.

About Cleo

Cleo Communications provides reliable, proven solutions to access to XML, IBM® WebSphere® MQ and 3270 or 5250 mainframe data from Java, .NET, VoiceXML and other IVR development tools.

Cleo's products have been proven in over 100,000 worldwide installations. Customers in the manufacturing, retail, healthcare and financial services industries, among others, rely on Cleo's products and services to help them achieve complete automated data transfer solutions.

Cleo's high-performance and highly reliable 3270 and 5250 mainframe communications products have been installed on over 10,000 Avaya IVR systems over the last ten years. Cleo's TN3270 and SNA products are integrated into Avaya's script development tools from Script Builder to IR Designer.

To learn more about how Cleo’s TN3270 solutions can provide quick, powerful access to information stored on mainframes, increase security of data in transit, and reduce project times, contact Cleo today.

 

IBM and WebSphere are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation