July, 2008: An in-country foreign currency payment clearing system has been developed by the Singapore-based NCS Group for a leading commercial bank in Shandong province.

The hassle-free system platform connects the back-office applications of a bank to the front end or any other systems within Laishang Bank, the biggest city commercial lender in Shandong. According to its Web site, the bank, with 22 outlets in the city of Laiwu, had 12.9 billion yuan (US$1.9 billion) of assets and 307 million yuan of net income in 2007.

Known as the ECP-PowerClear system, it has been developed on NCS China’s middleware application platform, the Exchange Connect Platform.

NCS is a leading information technology and communications engineering service provider in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

Laishang Bank recognises the business impact and importance of being able to provide financial products and services for in-country clearing and settlement of foreign currency for its customers.

“We are impressed with NCS professionalism and delivery standard throughout the whole implementation process. We are pleased with the overall test result and proud of our choice to partner NCS for the ECP System,” says general manager Zhang Chengsheng of the bank’s International Business Department.

According to Timothy Choon, director of NCS China’s Financial Services and Insurance, the ECP – PowerClear system is developed on J2EE Web technology that allows flexibility to deploy in a distributed architecture business model to meet the different needs of different customers.

Mr Zhang says the system can link seamlessly with other commercial banks’ backend operational system, thus satisfying the request for the in-country foreign currency payment clearing service.

NCS has also developed a whole suite of solutions riding on the Exchange Connect Platform. These include the ECP-PowerMessage system and ECP-PowerX system that interface with the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) systems and run on SWIFTNet solutions promptly. These solutions enable the banks to operate more efficiently and securely, thereby reducing the cost and strengthening the banks’ competitiveness and enhancing the customers' satisfaction.

These systems have been implemented smoothly for banks in eastern China.

“NCS has been pursuing the regional financial services and insurance sector aggressively,” says CEO Lim Eng. “We are scaling our ranking in China’s FSI market to being one of the top 10 IT service providers in the IDC2007 research of Bank Payment and Settlement Market.

“NCS will continue to build and develop further competencies to value-add to customers’ business and contribute to the financial industry in China and in the regions,” Mr Lim adds.

The ECP service platform, as well as other FSI solutions, such as the Mobile Branch Automation (MBA) system, which won the Asian Banker IT Implementation Awards at the Asian Banker Summit 2008, will be showcased at the international financial exhibition, SIBOS, Vienna in September this year.

More on NCS

Have a success story to share?
Email us at contact_isg@portalcity.com.sg to request for your story to be featured.