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Baldwin Hackett & Meeks, Inc. (BHMI), is a leading
software solution organization that has been
implementing mission-critical applications for more
than 18 years. The company has a proven reputation
for creating high-volume transaction processing
solutions with continuous availability and unlimited
scalability. BHMI has expertise in a wide range of
industries, with a particularly strong focus on developing
premier solutions for the financial services
industry. The HP NonStop server is a key platform
for the deployment of BHMI solutions.
When it set out to create an enhanced settlement
processing solution for the retail delivery of ATM
and POS transactions, BHMI took a hard look at
major trends in the financial services sector. Greater
focus on cost containment by banks and payments
processors; rising volumes and shorter settlement
time frames; the need for more innovative services
to attract and retain customers—all these factors
and more were closely considered.
The result was Concourse-ESP. “Combining
BHMI’s technical and industry expertise has
allowed us to develop one of the industry’s most
scalable and available settlement processing
solutions,” noted Dave Smith, sales manager for BHMI’s
Concourse-ESP division. “Concourse-ESP transforms
the traditional end-of-day batch settlement
process into a continuous processing environment.
This approach streamlines the processing environment
and substantially reduces the risk of missing
critical settlement deadlines. Additionally,
our customers have the benefit of immediate
access to valuable transaction information.”
Concourse-ESP continuously processes electronic
funds transfer (EFT) transactions from multiple
sources and concurrently calculates the resulting
settlement positions. All information received from
front-end EFT applications and external networks
is stored in an online information repository, utilizing
HP NonStop SQL database software. This facilitates
trends analysis, operational research, and a variety
of queries and reports. Concourse-ESP can
interface with multiple EFT applications, including
ACI’s BASE24 and eFunds CONNEX, providing
a level of flexibility that is highly valued by
financial services customers.
Customers also value the product’s browser user
interface, according to Concourse-ESP product
manager Marcy Lauver. “This interface allows financial
services providers to efficiently research and
quickly resolve customer inquiries,” she explained.
“In addition, they can give their clients direct access
to their own system data. The result is a reduced
need for customer service personnel as well as
improved quality of service.” Lauver added that
Concourse-ESP is the only settlement solution in
the marketplace that has been designed to leverage
the inherent strengths of the NonStop platform.
BHMI looks forward to the arrival of the Intel®
Itanium® microprocessor–based NonStop server. “This
will be hugely beneficial to our customers, because it
will help reduce the cost of processing,” commented
Smith. Porting Concourse-ESP to run smoothly
on the Itanium platform is a key part of BHMI’s
strategy. As always, BHMI will continue to leverage
its strength in custom software development to mold
Concourse-ESP to customers’ specific needs.
Concourse-ESP makes every second count with
continuous processing and instant data access. “It
may be faster time to market; it may be winning
customers away from competitors; it may be dealing
with exponential transaction growth,” concluded
Smith. “There are many advantages, but the significant
point is that customers are achieving real
business results with our solution on the NonStop
platform. It gives them a secure foundation that
makes it possible to adapt quickly to changing market
forces and new opportunities.”
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A winning advantage
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| Two customers that are presently reaping the
benefits of Concourse-ESP on the NonStop platform
are Everlink and NetWorks.
Everlink Payment Services Inc., jointly owned by NYCE
Corporation and Celero Solutions, chose Concourse-
ESP to meet its financial settlement processing and
reconciliation needs. “After an extensive review process,
we selected Concourse-ESP because of its continuous
processing architecture and its searchable online
information repository,” said Sheryl Britton, director of
operations at Everlink. “Furthermore, it interfaces with
our front-end processing environment and offers a
flexible and scalable infrastructure. We also put great
value in the fact that Baldwin Hackett & Meeks could
augment Concourse-ESP to meet our unique Canadian
settlement and reporting requirements to support
Interac and ACCULINK transaction processing.”
NetWorks chose Concourse-ESP for its transaction
viewing, disputes processing, and ATM cash positioning
needs. With access to near real-time transaction data
via a browser-based user interface, NetWorks can quickly
resolve disputes using an automated management
process, and monitor ATM cash positions throughout
the day. “Since NetWorks’ payment processing infrastructure
currently resides on the HP NonStop platform,
we wanted the transaction viewing and disputes
processing functionality to run on the same platform,”
said Philip Jossi, president at NetWorks. “By selecting
Concourse-ESP, we will be able to leverage NetWorks’
current investment in NonStop technology, limit our
operating costs, and offer superior client services.” |
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