FTP

Automation of FTP process - full implementation

The previously-implemented semi-automated business-used prototype of the daily fund transfer price (FTP) for the mortgage domain was moved to production from business to IT departments of a large Dutch bank and became an IT system under FAM responsibility.

The resulting fully-automated application was built on a consistent technology stack, which includes .NET, Visual Studio, C#, SQL-Server, SSIS package, QRM. The tool is accompanied by the corresponding graphical user interface (GUI) which was developed in ASP.NET.

This project turned out to be very challenging, especially because of: i) the interactions among various bank departments, including IT, FAM, FTP Centre and Mortgage Group; ii) the large technology stack involved. In all these cases we were in the lead.

Automation of FTP process

For a large Dutch bank we created a detailed plan plus working prototype to replace the manual daily funds transfer prices (FTP) for the mortgages domain process with an automate system.

The resulting prototype achieved automation using the windows scheduler, Visual Basic scripts and Excel (with macro code). This prototype was the first step to automate the process and greatly reduced the workload for the business team charged with producing the daily prices. From an IT perspective this first round of automation was not enough as the prototype model didn’t fulfill the straight through processing required by IT as it still requires manual steps. In the second phase of the project we investigated which steps can be taken to achieve straight through processing. We suggested to migrate the solution to a more technically robust environment using C#, SISS package and SQL-server.

Mortgages Integration Project at ABN AMRO

We have been working on an integration project at ABN AMRO and their subsidiary ABN AMRO Hypotheken Groep. The project requires the migration of mortgages from an obsolete system to a Quantitative Risk Management (QRM) system.

To manage the project effectively we compiled a scenario for a successful migration, based on information gathered throughout the organization. As part of this process, we studied both the current process of funding the mortgage contracts and the process they to which they are migrating. This presented an opportunity to immerse ourselves the funding practices of banks and link these to implementation, i.e. proper engineering.

The migration requires a move from an existing funding methodology to the industry standard of Funds Transfer Pricing [1. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funds_Transfer_Pricing for more details on FTP] (FTP). Implementing this needed a conversion methodology. After a literature search we suggested a methodology and implemented it. For the implementation we build a Microsoft Excel/VBA tool to do the relevant computations. Migration of the mortgage contract data from the old system required custom built SQL scripts in combination with the QRM Transaction Data Mart tool. Once the migration is complete all the mortgage information will be stored and processed in one place, reducing operation risk.