With 124 members in its network running countless payment services, the consortium’s latest digitalization measures are timely.
In the Philippines, a consortium of 124 members comprising banks, cooperatives, electronic money issuers, affiliate switch networks and independent ATM deployers operates a network that spans more than 22,000 Automatic Teller Machines and 400,000 Point of Sale terminals.
Amid the effects of the pandemic in the country, the BancNet consortium has processed a record one billion transactions, significantly contributing to the growth of the country’s digital payments economy. At the same time, the growth has necessitated improvements in digitalization to boost automation, efficiencies and scale to keep up with the effects of global economic changes.
According to BancNet Chief Operations and Technology Officer Arnel Lim: “For three decades, BancNet has been… building critical payments infrastructure to enable its members to make formal financial services accessible to more people, including financially underserved segments. The efficiency from automating billing and settlement processes, including dispute management among the participants, helps us gain member trust, attracts more participants and more transactions onto our network, advancing our efforts to build inclusive digital payment ecosystems at scale.”
Hyperconnecting a consortium
Lim was referring to the consortium’s recent digitalization efforts to modernize legacy, disparate billing and settlement systems and improve flexibility and agility across a hyper-complex network.
Built on a standards-based, open architecture framework, the enhanced platform features simplify integration with upstream and downstream financial systems such as partner systems, multiple Interchanges, Switch and Core Banking systems. The system is PA-DSS and OWASP compliant.
Critical operations such as Partner Management, Fees Computation, Partner Settlement, Billing and Dispute Management are all integrated onto a single platform, bringing benefits such as reduced operational costs, improved control and visibility across payment processes and lower risk exposure for member banks.
Additionally, the new enhancements automate critical back-office functions and help maintain financial integrity of the ecosystem to mitigate risk acorss transactions originating from any delivery channel such as ATM, POS, and internet gateways. Through partnerships with multiple interchanges the system supports billing and settlement for transactions between member and non-member institutions.
With easier and faster dispute management, the enhancements can foster greater trust among participants of the consortium.
According to Krishnan Srinivasan, Chief Operating Officer, FSS PayTech, the consortium’s technology partner: “We are proud to collaborate with Philippines’ largest payments consortium to modernize core billing, settlement processes and dispute management among participants for smooth functioning of the payments system.”
