NOMINATION FOR IT PROJECT OF THE YEAR – THE CASH SERVICE COMPANY INFORMATION SYSTEM MANAGES 2 BILLION CASH MONTHLY, COMPUTERWORLD – ISSUE 21, 2009/IT PROJECTS

THE SOLUTION DESIGNED AND IMPLEMENTED BY INTERCONSULT BULGARIA ENSURES EFFECTIVE EXECUTION OF THE DAILY OPERATIONS RELATED TO THE COUNTING OF CASH.

The Cash Service Company JSC (CSC JSC) was established in July 2007 by the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB), DSK Bank, United Bulgarian Bank and UniCredit Bulbank as its main shareholders. Upon its establishment, the CSC JSC had a share capital of 10 million BGN, as each of the shareholders had a share of 25%. The CSC JSC headquarters is based in Sofia, and there are another four territorial units which function within the country, which manage the business processes in Plovdiv, Varna, Pleven and Burgas. The CSC JSC has more than 200 qualified employees to implement its main activity, based on state-of-the-art cash technologies. The company launched its effective work on 14 April 2008, as each month it processes cash at the amount of over 2 billion BGN. The bank community recognizes the challenges facing the professional cash activity as well as the new high requirements related to the task of including the country in the European currency exchange system. The need to gradually innovate the professional cash activity has been identified. The central bank took the initiative to establish an independent company which to work for the whole interbank community and to facilitate the timely, secure and quality cash exchange in the country.

Presently, the CSC JSC has 20 banks as its clients, as besides the co-founders these include: Raiffeisenbank Bulgaria, Central Cooperative Bank, CIBANK, Municipal Bank, International Asset Bank, Investbank, Societe Generale Expressbank, Allianz Bank Bulgaria, Emporiki Bank Bulgaria, Commercial Bank, Bulgarian American Credit Bank, Eurobank and FG Bulgaria (Postbank), ProCredit Bank Bulgaria, MKB Unionbank, Tokuda Bank and Pireus Bank Bulgaria. Of all registered commercial banks in BNB the CSC services are not used only by CHPB Teksim, NLB West – East Bank, Corporate Commercial Bank and Bulgarian Development Bank, as well as the foreign bank branches Alpha Bank – Bulgaria Branch, Bank Leumi Romania S.A. – Sofia Branch, BNP Pariba S.A. – Sofia Branch, ING Bank NV – Sofia Branch, CitiBank N.A. – Sofia Branch and Te-Dje Ziraat Bankasa – Sofia Branch.

Before choosing the IT system, there have been two years of research and analysis of existing solutions and options. Initially, the Working Group created by the Association of Banks in Bulgaria included representatives of a number of banks, but later it gathered representatives of the CSC co-founders only. A principle followed in the selection of any system, IS included, is that the CSC stakeholders should offer a list of companies with whom they have already worked, explained Lyuben Ivanov, Executive Director of the CSC JSC. “The Working Group elaborated terms of reference on the type of functionality the software should support and sent letters to the companies.” Among the companies which expressed their interest to implement the CSC system were the Bulgarian companies InterConsult Bulgaria and Bankservice, the German company Giesecke&Devrient GmbH (which is the only supplier of banknote processing machines certified by the BNB), a company from the UK, and the Austrian CSC counterpart GeldService Austria (GSA). “Some of the participants gave up due to specific conditions such as the requirement that the software applications should be in Bulgarian, and the relatively tight implementation period – around 7-8 months. Others had at their disposal software applications which were not specialized for this type of activity. Finally, InterConsult Bulgaria managed to win both with its price, and its deadlines, and the system maintenance and support is carried out here in Sofia”, said Ivanov.
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Safe Cash has been designed by InterConsult България (ICB), which works in this field for more than 10 years. The company has over 240 successfully concluded projects in more than ten countries, and has more than 80 highly qualified specialists in software development and management consultancy. “65% of our turnover has been generated by international projects”, Stoian Boev explains, Managing Director of ICB. The company has ISO 9001-2008 certificate since 1998 and also is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for software development since 2003. ICB is also a partner of IDS SCHEER – leader in the field of business process management. The company has implemented its cash deposit solution EasySafe in Norway, which manages the processing of 70% of the cash deposits in this Scandinavian country. “Initially, we were thinking of redesigning and supplementing the Norwegian solution” Branimir Ivanov says, software architect in ICB, in charge of the CSC project. “Then it turned out that this system cannot cover all business processes which are implemented in the Bulgarian CSC, which necessitated our new development of the Safe Cash solution, but still we made use of the software platform we had. Given that the system was designed and added “along the way”, that is together with the organizational development of the company itself, very often this led to amending and adding the business processes so that to respond to the real needs”, Branimir Ivanov adds.
“The CSC information system is flexible and constantly developing. When a given bank demands a service which we do not offer at the moment, it is developed as a new service and business process, and is ordered to ICB for implementation.  I am satisfied with our joint work, they respond quickly and their developers are very talented” Lyuben Ivanov said. “I would like to point out especially the contribution of Branimir Ivanov, team leader. He not only successfully implemented our ideas, but also often suggests to us the right and effective solutions since he is very familiar with our business processes”, the CSC Executive Director added.
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[Full article available in Bulgarian]



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