DFCC Bank CEO Lakshman Silva (Left) and Epic Lanka Managing Director/CEO Viraj Mudalige
Sri Lanka’s award-winning regional technology leader Epic Technology Group marked another milestone in the local financial landscape after its flagship Epic Card Management System (CMS) became Sri Lanka’s first CMS to be certified with Visa’s Mobile Push Payment Solution (mVisa). DFCC Bank will be the first bank in the country to launch this solution to its customers.
With the latest integration, Epic CMS now provides out-of-the-box support for mobile push payment services to combine the power of universal mobile connected devices with low-risk ‘push transactions’. The service brings the advantages of payment card associations—security, reliability, and global acceptance—and enables consumers to access funds more easily in their accounts through a mobile device to make everyday purchases both domestically and internationally.
The solution provides the convenience of a quick transaction along with enhanced security since consumers do not need to share their card details with the merchant anytime during the payment process, resulting in lower disputes. It also provides versatile transactional capabilities to drive widespread consumer acceptance and opens a new channel to access payment card networks to optimise in serving markets where traditional merchant acceptance rate is poor and where a low cost, lower risk payment acceptance capability is required. Furthermore, it assists in allowing merchants of all sizes to accept electronic payments without the need to obtain and run traditional Point-of-Sale (POS) devices.
Upholding pioneering innovation spirit
Commenting on the achievement, DFCC Bank Chief Executive Officer Lakshman Silva said, “Upholding the pioneering innovation spirit that the bank is known for, DFCC Bank is pleased to be the first bank in the country to launch the mVisa facility and the Visa Corporate Credit Card for our customers. These pioneering initiatives were made possible through the CMS implementation that the bank carried out with Epic Lanka and we are indeed very pleased to be the first bank in Sri Lanka to partner with Epic on their very first CMS installation in the world. DFCC Bank has proved its credentials as a trail-blazer in the industry, pushing the frontiers of digitalisation to pave the way for the rest of the industry. Our customer-centric focus inspires us to embrace and adopt the latest technology to benefit our stakeholders and I believe our partnership with Epic will further strengthen us to empower our customers by offering novel, digital banking solutions.”
Epic Lanka Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer and Chief Payment Solutions Architect Viraj Mudalige said: “We are extremely delighted and proud of accomplishing this monumental feat after having embarked on this spirited journey way back in the year 2008. We stepped into this competitive electronic payment space with a clear manifesto in mind which is to create a massive name for Sri Lanka in the global financial landscape.”
Top-of-the-line security
The entire solution is fortified with top-of-the-line security to ensure every interaction is safe. The security features embedded in this system comply with and conforms to various international standards and architectures. Moreover, the solution ensures compliance with the regulatory guidelines defined by the respective Payment Card Associations and Monetary Authorities. Tokenisation technology is bundled within the mobile push payments suite to replace sensitive card details with a surrogate value (token). This way, if the transaction was breached, no sensitive information is revealed, and the real card detail remains secure.
Epic CMS comes with a rich set of application services upon which companies can quickly build new payment products for clients, thereby enabling companies to grow and transform your payments approach. An all-inclusive, superior Customer Relationship Management (CRM) module catering to the dynamic needs of the banking and financial services industry also forms part of the system along with highly configurable and fully automated EOD (End of Day) and EOM (End of Month) processes.
A wide range of collections and recoveries features to administer overdue and delinquent cardholder accounts is also embedded within the system to assist in ascertaining the bank’s financial stability, lowering write-offs, and increasing debt recoveries. Rule-based credit scoring engine, cash-back schemes, balance transfer services, easy payment schemes, loan on cards, loyalty schemes and redemption programs, standing instructions, dynamic merchant commission schemes, promotional offerings, sophisticated reporting, simplified system configuration, comprehensive monitoring dashboard, dynamic file formats, and automated bill settlement facility are some of the other key offerings of the system.
Prominently, the system encompasses seamless integration capability with 3-D Secure Access Control Server (ACS) and with any enterprise document and workflow management system. The reports are fully customisable to align with the bank’s internal policies, audit guidelines, and other various regulatory requirements.
Nurturing local talent
Mudalige mentioned that almost all the card issuers and acquirers locally are consuming the services of card systems powered by international vendors. Over the years, Epic Lanka has witnessed that these international vendors have been overcharging local banks and financial institutions for system modifications and scheduled maintenances, which is not only a huge concern for these companies, but it is also affecting Sri Lanka’s economy in a significant way. In such a context, Epic Lanka realised the potential role it could play in stopping the outflow of Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange by nurturing local talent with required domain expertise.
“Sri Lanka is blessed with a talented workforce and when you compare local engineering talent with foreign engineers, we believe we are second to none. Identifying this important factor paved the path for us to engineer an agile, 100% home-grown CMS solution to suit the local market dynamics and requirements with unmatched flexibility and componentised design which could be highly extensible through parameterisation and user-driven customisation. Meantime, having capitalised on latest trends and technologies together by aligning with global market needs and trends, we have high hopes to generate more foreign revenue with our flagship Epic CMS solution as it has attracted the interest of other global players in the banking and financial services industry. With Sri Lanka eyeing to reduce the cash outflow from the country, we are now quite comfortably positioned ourselves to fight with international payment giants in the card systems space at a fraction of their cost,” he commented further.
Sri Lanka’s only fully-fledged Card Management System
Epic CMS is Sri Lanka’s only fully-fledged Card Management System—a state-of-the-art, comprehensive electronic payment solution fully augmented to facilitate the full spectrum of card issuing and merchant acquiring capabilities. It provides an all-inclusive platform for the provision of vital functions related to card issuance and merchant acquisition lifecycles such as application processing, card personalisation, customer portfolio maintenance, card product management, back-office operations, merchant and terminal management, multi-channel universal transaction switch for online real-time authorisations and transaction processing.
The Card Issuance Platform provides the ability to issue unique and niche card products utilising multiple card technologies to the consumer base and the issuance and personalisation processes are fully compliant with relevant specifications and regulations, including payment card associations, EMV, and regulatory bodies.
The built-in Acquiring Platform of the CMS carries the capability of expanding the merchant acquiring foot-print while enabling cross-channel payment transactions; thus functioning as a single integrated hub that manages all digital delivery channels allowing banks to reap the rewards of centralised customer information and opening the door to a wealth of innovations.
Furthermore, the system is designed to seamlessly integrate with Epic’s suite of electronic channels resulting in a substantial extension, which overall will deliver comprehensive secure payment processing functionalities in a single suite at a fraction of the cost of managing and operating multiple systems from multiple different vendors. In the meantime, Epic Lanka is in the process of obtaining the Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) Version 3.2 certification for Epic CMS which is the highly acclaimed security standard governed by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) towards software vendors developing secure payment applications.
One-stop shop plans
This is by far one of the biggest projects coming out from Epic to take Sri Lanka to the global arena. Epic CMS envisages on becoming the one-stop shop for any financial institution’s card payment needs with the support for all banking channels within a single, integrated platform. The system would help banks drive channel innovations, enabling business growth and revenue, whilst delivering relevant, contextual and personalised customer experiences. The modular nature of this solution allows it to be deployed globally with minimal changes and agility of the design allows it to be finely customised according to the client’s requirement while ensuring flexible deployment configurations.”
“Increased proliferation of smartphones and tablet devices and the rollout of various disruptive telecommunication services are expected to drive mobile market penetration growth in both developing and developed economies. Mobile payments will go mainstream in the near future. With more than six billion in the world having access to a mobile device, and that figure is expected to grow, and electronic payments via mobile devices will become more commonplace than ever before. Achieving yet another pioneering feat in the country, we embarked on a revolutionary initiative of bundling mobile push payment capabilities (leveraging upon Visa Mobile Push Payments) within the Card Management System.”
“Accordingly, DFCC Bank marked history by being the first bank in the island to expand and deepen consumer and merchant relationships by combining ubiquitous mobile-connected devices with low-risk push payments as the underlying transaction. We believe that this initiative would drive DFCC Bank to be highly competitive and extremely well placed in the banking and financial landscape expanding their footprint and to establish a seamless ecosystem across all segments of the society while bringing real benefits to drive digital transformation. All banks and financial institutions in the region will now have the benefit of innovating new payment products to best suit their customer needs by implementing Epic CMS which will be a definite ‘game changer’ to aid in redefining the electronic payment landscape in the local, regional, and international markets,” Mudalige stated further.
Faith in local talent
Mudalige took the opportunity to thank DFCC Bank which was Epic’s first CMS customer in Sri Lanka.
“We are so indebted to the Management of DFCC Bank for their faith in the local talent and trust in Epic which resulted in bestowing us with the esteemed opportunity of carrying out our very first CMS implementation locally. Despite being the last entrant to the card systems space in the island, Epic CMS has been able to undoubtedly steal the show, having been strategically positioned to deliver an immense value proposition with novel features and capabilities while meeting the evolving technological needs and future business objectives.”
