Ovations Technologies sets the paperless standard

The International Business Centre (IBC) division within Standard Corporate and Merchant Bank (SCMB) chose to go the paperless route with Ovations Technologies` workflow system.

The IBC is the division within SCMB that processes financial transactions to settle cross-border trade for the corporate, commercial and SME market segments. The IBC realised that a paperless environment in this line of business would be hugely beneficial, and Ovations Technologies was approached to set about doing the conversion.

"Our task was to automate the processes within the IBC by dematerialising paper and introducing workflow that would enforce best practices and integrate the sales offices with the back-office and central processing systems," explains Ovations Technologies` MD, Rainer Gaier. "This will be implemented at all of IBC`s sales offices nationally."

Making up the paperless solution is a combination of servers, storage arrays, storage technologies, Visual Interdev development tools, scanning and barcode recognition tools as well as a range of other software. All were selected for their high levels of reliability and fault-tolerance.

"By removing the paper and automating the routing and decision-making process right from the start, processing efficiency has increased dramatically," Rainer continues. "The immediate benefit of centralising is that the IBC can take on more work without having to increase the headcount, resulting in a greater return on investment."

Other benefits include reduced lag time, greater security, work being automatically distributed to the correct personnel, and improved customer service levels.

Workflow and document imaging technologies are being used globally by major trade processing banks as the most appropriate technology route to process trade transactions and improve customer service.