Partnering with Volante and Bytes as part of the bank’s payment infrastructure modernization program to support new services and newly mandated instruments including Authenticated Collections in South Africa

NEW YORK, LONDON, DUBAI, MEXICO CITY,Volante Technologies Inc., a global leader in the provision of software for the integration, processing and orchestration of financial messages, data and payments, together with its South African partner Bytes Universal Systems, have been selected by Nedbank to facilitate the transformation of its financial payments message service layer across multiple Nedbank entities.

Bytes Universal Systems will be responsible for the deployment of Volante’sVolPay Foundation, an optimised platform for the development of financial payment message integration, validation and processing. Through the partnership, Volante and Bytes are efficiently addressing key financial messaging challenges impacting the South African market.

VolPay Foundation accelerates many of the required development processes through automatic code and documentation generation and inbuilt testing. The platform also includes validation and conversion logic, predefined functions, mapping tools and pre-built transformations. More than 330 maintained local, regional and global message standards and transformations are included along with automated deployment into multiple environments.

Mark Neethling, General Manager: Financial Services at Bytes Universal Systems, said all South African institutions, from banks to payment service providers and corporates, are required to make major changes to their infrastructure and processes.

“Speed of development and time to market are of the essence and, in Volante’sVolPay Foundation, we have chosen the best-in-class software available for the transformation, validation and processing of financial messages. Coupled with our local expertise and market presence, we have created the best possible combination of software and implementation skills to help Nedbank bring new innovations to market faster, meet the needs of its customers, and realise new commercial opportunities,” said Neethling.

A period of testing is scheduled to commence in March 2016. From September 2016, South African banks will have to cease offering the current non-authenticated early debit orders (NAEDO) and instead offer the new debit order instrument, Authenticated Collections (AC). The new AC debit order instrument uses a combination of the ISO 20022 and ISO 8583 message standards to authenticate, process and report on the lifecycle of each transaction. Each of these transactions will require the definition and maintenance of customer mandates as well as the generation of collection requests and their validation against these mandates.

According to Mick Fennell, General Manager, Middle East & Africa, at Volante, using VolPay Foundation, Nedbank’s own resources can now rapidly create the necessary message transformation and validation between the bank’s external channels and its core payment processes. In addition, Volante supports deployment into both real-time and off-line processing environments, as mandated by the new AC standard.

“The payments world is constantly changing, particularly in the South African market. Not only do banks now have to adapt their systems to comply with the new ISO 20022 standards, but they must also integrate these changes with new digital payment channels and changing customer demands,” Fennell said.

“We are delighted that we could demonstrate to Nedbank that we provide the necessary products to address the AC message development project. In combination with our local partner Bytes, we are proud to have been selected to be part of the bank’s long-term, strategic vision for the transformation of its payments infrastructure,” Fennell added.

According to Glenn Smith, Divisional Executive of Nedbank Group Technology’s Mobile, E-Commerce & Payments Division, the organisation embarked on a strategic programme to transform its payment infrastructure with a view to further enhancing its customer service. The objective is to ensure the highest levels of processing agility and efficiency while accelerating Nedbank’s support for new clearing standards and new digital payment services.

“A key part of this new infrastructure is our Gateway architecture, which addresses the integration needs of all of our customer channels, clearing networks, and internal systems with our core payment processing service. By using the combination of Volante’s technology and Bytes’ expertise, we have every confidence that we will meet our customers’ ongoing demands for new products and services quickly and efficiently, while also remaining compliant with new regulation,” Smith said.