NCS provided Ceylinco a leading edge in the remittance business

The cross-border remittance business is growing steadily. The World Bank estimated that in 2005, cross-border remittance volume reached more than US$230 billion, and that informal channels alone could add at least 50 percent to the official estimate.

To penetrate this market, Ceylinco Express Remittance Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of Ceylinco Consolidated, the largest conglomerate in Sri Lanka engaging in the business of investment holding, infrastructure development, financial services and other business activities, has a clear business strategy - to deliver a differentiated remittance service that facilitates speed and reliable money transfer with a host of value-added benefits.

To achieve this, Ceylinco Express needed a remittance management system that could transfer funds practically anywhere in the world conveniently, securely and cost-effectively yet offer customised money transfer services to address its unique business needs and market conditions.

NCS, a leading regional IT and communications engineering provider in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions, provided Ceylinco Express a safe, convenient and efficient way of transferring funds via a web-based customised remittance management system.

A Winning Proposition:
The NCS team, consisting of highly-qualified IT and highly-specialised financial domain experts, after conducting a careful study of Ceylinco Express’ business needs, their processes and their product differentiation strategy, delivered a winning proposition that provided Ceylinco a leading edge in the remittance business - superior performance and functionality while eliminating capital investment and sped time to market.

With Ceylinco’s assistance, the system was implemented in a matter of four months. NCS’ total solution extended from blueprint, design, development to business continuity and outsourcing. It empowered Ceylinco Express to unveil its new revolutionary international money transfer product, Ceylinco FastCash to the global market.

As the Ceylinco FastCash remittance operations involved a network of member agents in countries around the world, NCS designed a flexible, scalable and easy-to-use system using thin-client web applications. This would enable Ceylinco Express to attract and expand the network of agents easily as no heavy system investment on the part of the agent or lead time for system setup is required.

It also provides efficient processing and management of the cross border remittance transactions including commission and foreign exchange revenue calculations, agency profit sharing and management, and the settlements process between agents and the franchise owner. It also has ‘instant’ money transfer capabilities as well, allowing the beneficiary to receive funds within minutes anywhere in the world. Other competitive advantages that the system provides include enabling Ceylinco Express to offer its customers innovative value-added services such SMS alerts, home delivery, insurance coverage and so forth.

NCS’ solution also incorporates extensive fraud protection and risk management including stringent encryption and other security technologies and procedures that address risks and protect against use for money laundering. The system has built-in manual controls for greater security and monitoring of transactions, for example, a dual user login control has been implemented for supervisory and teller level login, preventing unauthorised remote login via internet.

The Ceylinco FastCash service was launched in the Middle East in late 2006. The service is centrally hosted in Singapore. All the agents and customers are provided with technical training and back office support services from Singapore and regional office in Dubai.

Due to the mission-critical nature of the remittance business, NCS supports the system round-the-clock. The infrastructure is hosted in Singapore and with business continuity measures in place. The arrangement allows Ceylinco Express to focus on its core business of remittance service.

Ceylinco FastCash Service:
The Ceylinco FastCash service allows approximately 600,000 Sri Lankan expatriates in the Middle East a convenient, efficient and safe remittance option.

The sender can go to any of the Ceylinco Express’ authorised agents to transfer funds. The agent will log on to Ceylinco FastCash website, key in the sender’s information and submit the transaction. This process takes only a few minutes to complete. Once the sender is registered in the network, his information will automatically be retrieved when he next does his transaction, leading to faster turnaround time.

Within minutes of submission, Seylan Bank functioning as the settlement/custodian bank for the system will receive the notification. The bank will then inform the beneficiary immediately via phone call or SMS, indicating the transaction number. The beneficiary needs only go to the nearest bank branch with his identification papers and the transaction number to collect the fund. The system will generate a SMS to the sender once the disbursement is effected.

The system also gives Ceylinco Express the flexibility to provide other value added services such as cash delivery to home of the beneficiary, insurance cover, special housing loan schemes and so forth.

Key Benefits:
NCS’ remittance solution offers some of the following key benefits:

• Secured Transactions
• ‘Instant’ money transfer capabilities
• Flexibility and Scalability
• Efficient processing and management of the cross border remittance transactions
• No heavy capital investment
• User Friendly and Convenience

Click here for more about NCS.

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