One platform, one application, one data source

It didn’t matter what part of the RKB we needed assistance with, Aryza and their excellent consultants never failed to provide expert support. Comprehensive administration, designing workflows, even when it came to automation – Aryza was always there to provide competent expertise and suggestions in order to develop a solution.” Jens de Wall, Administrator for the RKB

How Haspa worked with Aryza to prepare for the future

Hamburger Sparkasse AG (Haspa) is the leading bank for private customers and mid-sized companies in the Hamburg metropolitan area. They use their excellent customer care and expertise to support people and companies with financial planning and ensuring a secure future, and are one of the key players for Hamburg as a centre of commerce and industry. Comprehensive services and personal consultations can be accessed quickly in any of the 100 branch locations or via digital channels.

Haspa provides funding for the majority of start-ups in Hamburg and has industry-specific expertise for large real estate and corporate customers. Affluent customers have access to Haspa Private Banking.

This process involved replacing a variety of legacy systems, because maintenance and further development of existing structures required too much effort, and because doing so would increase synergies with the Savings Banks Finance Group. In addition, RKB was to be implemented as an add-on, a standardized software solution for all challenges related to processing potentially high-risk loans: including intensive support, restructuring, and debt collection processing. The idea was to use the new solution to replace a previously fractured landscape and provide a larger, more uniform product from a single source.

The background: as the data came from a number of different sources, it made no sense to continue development. In addition, the new solution needed to be integrated more closely with the operative banking system. This time intensive process was, until this project, implemented in-house at Haspa. The Goal: in future, all data for processing high-risk loans should come from a single source.

But migrating the legacy applications for processing high-risk loans to RKB required special expertise above and beyond knowledge of the Finanz Informatik programs. And this was where Aryza came in; since over the course of the previous year the company had successfully completed migrations from around 150 specialized source systems to RKB. So Aryza was hired to implement the migration as part of the larger project, and, on top of that, provided support for launching RKB. As part of the project, Haspa employees received comprehensive training in the various RKB subject modules and in administration; here, too, Aryza provided support with its expertise.

The challenge of data migration

The biggest challenge was the fact that the migration was taking place in the middle of the year: a scenario had to be developed that took into account that the migration would not be done at the turn of the year. This meant that the upgrade was significantly more complicated than it might have been: for accounts in default, every transaction is processed according to the law of obligations, and the institute in question must provide the customer in default with a precise list of receivables. In the case of a large institution such as Haspa, it goes without saying that this involves a great many accounts and transactions. Another issue was the complexity of the data, which could not all be migrated. It was therefore necessary to develop a scenario for a clean break before the migration, after which point employees would be able to work with the new application in the target framework.

Implementation

Implementation took place between November 2017 and Easter 2019, and began with configuring OSPlus for Haspa in an iterative workshop process. To start, a test transition was implemented in-house, with technical and professional support from a Aryza consultant. In addition, over 100 Haspa staff were trained to use the application – both internal and sales employees. It was clear that once OSPlus was being specifically used for real operations, the total number of users would increase significantly.

Initially, standard applications were implemented and adjusted to match the needs of the bank. In doing so, every possible customer and application use-case had to be taken into account: from potential problems with a large volume loans customer to the needs of the legal department. At the same time, all interfaces for customers and to regulatory bodies had to be set up. This meant a great deal of testing, as the complete interconnected OSPlus application had to be tested on each of the different levels.

Continued on-site development

There has been a new release every six months since the beginning of the project. Each new release is tested internally on site at Haspa, with an accompanying comprehensive impact assessment. In addition, specific user experiences and use-cases are always revealing nuances and details that require the program be readjusted in-house. Simultaneously, RKB is undergoing continued development for all Savings Banks in Germany, a process from which Haspa also benefits.

Advantages after introduction of RKB

• Simplified workflows for Haspa’s specialist staff: there are no longer technical challenges to be navigated while dealing with multiple programs.
• Significant improvements to data quality thanks to a networked, integrated solution
• The institute has met milestones as part of its synergy and efficiency strategy, because the introduction of RKB was part of transitioning to the OSPlus core banking system.
• Improved data quality and data integrity for regulatory reporting.
• Lower service provider costs for Haspa
• Compliance with regulatory requirements
• Diverse analysis options
• Innovation via fully or partially automated processes

Outlook and future

Digitization and automation will continue to be of great importance in the future. And Aryza is a strong partner for that future,