Information System In Allied Bank

Information System In assort bank confederate coin bound was the first bank to be established in Pakistan. It started away in Lahore by the name Australasia Bank before independence in 1942 was renamed allied Bank of Pakistan bound in 1974 and then Allied Bank exceptional in 2005.Allied Bank was the first Muslim bank to lay down been established in Pakistan.Established in December 1942 as the Australasia Bank in Lahore with a paid-up shargon capital of Rs. 0.12 million under the Chairmanship of Khawaja Bashir Bux, the Bank attracted deposits equivalent to Rs. 0.431 million in its first eighteen months of business.Today, with its existence of over 60 years, the Bank has built itself a foundation with a strong equity, assets and deposit base. At the time, the Banks total assets summationed to Rs. 0.572 million. Today, Allied Banks paid up Capital Reserves amount to Rs. 10.5 billion, deposits exceed Rs. 143 billion and total assets equal Rs. 170 billion. It offers universal b anking portions, while placing major(ip) emphasis on retail banking. The Bank also has the largest network of over 800 online branches in Pakistan and offers various technology-based professionalducts and services to its diverse clientele.VisionTo become a dynamic and economic bank providing integrated solutions and the first choice of bank for either customers.MissionTo provide high tech innovative solutions to meet customer requirementsTo create sustainable value through growth, force and diversity for every second holdersTo provide a challenging work environment, and reward dedicated team membersTo play a proactive role in contributing towards the society setIntegrityExcellence in serviceHigh performanceInnovation and growthAreas of BusinessAllied bank is operating in all major cities of Pakistan. It has a network of 700 branches.Information Systems at Allied Bank LimitedInformation remainss utilize at ABL differ from division to department and complete specifications of carcasss use of goods and servicesd in Customer Retail Banking Department will be mentioned in the later part of the report however, the IS used in Allied bank serves the commonalty purpose of quicker communication between all stake holders, updating of transactions process on daily basis, provision of better customer service, double-quick execution of entropy, easier assenting and communication to the rudimentary branch and other branches countrywide etc. However, Allied Bank used manual(a) systems before 2002. The reasons for making the pocket to change information systems be summarized belowThe necessity for converting from manual to automated systemsPersonnel at Allied Bank argon of the view that both manual and automated systems ar effective ways of message entry and transmission but manual info systems have certain cons as compared to their counterpart the automated selective information systems. Manual information systems are slow and tedious as compared to automated systems. Moreover, there are much chances of human error occurring in the impost of manual systems as compared to automated systems and this error removing is crucial to the efficient functioning of the Allied Bank. Moreover, manual data systems are less secure and tampering with data is possible via their use and to minimize that risk Allied bank coggleed to the use of automated Data systems in 2002. Moreover, Mr. Shahzad Shahid, Product Manager-Liabilities, was of the view that this change will resoluteness in cost reduction in the long run.Management Information System used at ABLThe MIS used at Allied bank Limited is prophet Database 10g. vaticinator Data base 10g has completely transformed the outlook and operations of ABL. It has transformed the structure such(prenominal) that now ABLs IS does not consist of fragmented machineries working idiosyncraticly to attain goals but they now function as a fused collection of servers, storage devices, and systems to me et the changing processing take of ABL. This resulted in dramatic cost reduction, overall efficiency and enhancement in the calibre of customer service. It has also reduced hardware costs by efficient networking and amalgamating of functions performed by various servers and systems. Cost reduction also took place because Oracle 10g eliminated the need for the purchases and upgrading of wariness softwares and beam of lights and third party interventions as it was a complete perplexity solution in itself.Oracle 10g also enabled Allied Bank Limited in efficient and wider data base storage, high and faster accessibility of data, faster performance, secure data transferring and cheaper application development. Salient features of Oracle 10g from which ABL is benefiting from are described below in great detail1Oracle 10g served as a real attractive investment for Allied Bank Limited as it cut down significant costs of Allied Bank on hardware because Oracle 10g provide the technology of Oracle Real Application Clusters which enabled the creation of communication clusters via use of just 3-4 PCs which become to a greater extent easier to administer and run and are more efficient as compared to functioning of sole systems.Oracle 10g also enabled Allied Bank to cut down its costs on storage devices which prove to be a big cost for banks to store humongous amounts of daily transactions and data. However, this problem was solved by the use of Oracles automatic storage management which not barely enabled the pooling of PCs but also enabled pooling of storage devices to the communication cluster as per required. This choice of addition of storage devices to clusters made the data transformation, collection and storage cheaper, easier and efficient.Oracle 10g has enabled Allied bank to save on its database management costs as its database administration is either completely automatic or much uncomplicated. This has enabled Allied bank to save its costs on the training of innovative database managers.Oracle 10g has its own cluster administration softwares which monitor, manage the performance of clusters and thus eliminates the needs for extra public utility company and program softwares. Oracle uses Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control and Management Packs to monitor clusters performance efficiently.Oracle 10g uses GUI tools and utilities for increasing the power and efficiency of the clusters.Oracle 10g also introduces self-administration in the databases through use of programs such as mechanical Storage Management, Automatic Memory Management, Automatic Optimizer Statistics Collection, Automatic Workload Repository, Automatic Database Diagnostics Monitor, Automatic SQL Tuning, Segment Advisor, Automatic Workload Management, Automatic Disk-Based supporting and Recovery to meet the changing processing, data transforming and storing demands.Thus, Allied Bank has benefited greatly from its qualify from Manual systems to the automated Oracle 10g system. The benefits reaped are unparalleled in terms of cost reduction, efficiency, data disseminating and decision making. Allied Bank in addition to the use of Oracle 10g uses softwares such as Unibank, however it is planning to change its banking software from Unibank to Temenos t-24 in the mid of 2010.Shift from Unibank to Temenos T-24When Allied bank shifted to automated Information Systems in 2002, it started use softwares such as UNIBANK .This software held answers to the management of all the chaos created by the use of manual systems.2Unibank was a branch centric cash management software which held answers to the banking problems of the time thus it was called the core banking solution. Unibank gave faster and safe electronic access to banking transactions and functions. Unibank enabled Allied Bank toEvaluate the latest record of all account transactions taking place in the branchExchange information with other departments of the branch such as finance and accounting observe and management of deposits and withdrawals simultaneouslyElectronic transfer of data from one branch to anotherProvision of e-statements for the employees making their jobs easier.Secure data control and transfer.Electronic supervise and management of employee payrollsNeed for Temenos T-24Although Unibank seemed to be the answer to all the banking problems at that time however receivable to changing technological trends, higher uncertainty in the environment, shift towards centralized functioning and policies, Allied Bank has decided to shift from Unibank to Temenos T-24. The reason being that, Unibank was branch centric software and due to this reason data could be lost or misplaced if server crashed at any particular branch. Moreover, considering the uncertain political situation in Pakistan, there was high possibility of raids and fires and due to this the threat of data loss was eminent thus a shift is being planned and utilise from Unibank to Temenos T-24 as we speak . This shift will be implemented in all the branches countrywide within a period of 6 months.The reason for shifting to Temenos T-24 is that it is centralized software with the central server in Kashmir track Branch in Lahore. This central server acts as a hub and daily transmissions are not only recorded in branches but in the central hub too, thus making the information more secure. Moreover, designated user ids/passwords, bio-metric systems add to the gage of information. All the transactions and operation take place in real time. Policies are designed at the central server in Lahore and are applicable to all the branches country wide thus making the operations uniform and legitimate in all the branches.3Temenos T-24 in addition to providing all the functions that Unibank provided, offers a more secure plan and new and efficient data bases. Moreover, Temenos T-24 is partners with Microsoft and has adopted MS platform to make the functioning of the software more user-friendly and easy. Moreover, one of the reasons for adopting Temenos T24 by ABL is that its cost of owner ship is very cheap as compared to the benefits it provides. Moreover, it uses established programs such as HTTP, XML so that functioning it not an entirely new experience but adds on to the previous knowledge of the employees.Moreover, it has an edge over Unibank as it eliminates the need for end-of-day banking and is a true 24/7 banking system, which heaves away burden from the employees and enables employees and customers to access updated information at all times.Department moneymaking(prenominal) and Retail BankingOverviewThe Commercial Retail Banking Group (CRBG) offers a variety of asset and liability-based retail products to its customers. The Groups main focus has been on introducing various financing and investment products for its valuable clients, and contributing to the sweetie growth of the financial industry.CRBG consists of 4 geographic groups and is get on divided acr oss 27 regions in Pakistan. Each region is responsible for providing a quality service to its own customer-base.In recent years, the Group has been working to find alternate ways to bank for customers, and has installed more ATMs to its already strong and largest ATM network.The department offers the adjacent product and services to its customersInternet BankingOnline BankingProfit RatesATM NetworkUnclaimed DepositsDeposit AccountSMEAgricultureOther ServicesCorporate LeasingThe department has a total of 6000 employees all over Pakistan, the information strike and the data transfer rate thus is very high and poses a great repugn for the Information System of the department to maintain and keep it secure.Functional Hierarchy of the DepartmentTechnical specificationsAllied Bank after its privatization has been following a pro I.T policy. The switch from the manual system to a more automated Information System requires certain infrastructure (PCs, Softwares etc) and ABL in this regar d didnt compromise on quality they have a contract with Digital World Pakistan Pvt. Ltd. (DWP) to provide state of the art com entrapers with the best softwares to run the M.I.S system.The CRBG dept of ABL has the following I.T infrastructureHardware SpecificationsPersonal computers-14 in total Consisting of 9 desktop PCs and 5 laptopsDesktop PCs Specs Intel Pentium 4 2.5ghz, 512MB RAM, 80 GB hard-diskLaptop PCs Specifications Intel Dual Core2 2Ghz, 2gb RAM, 160GB Hard-diskHP Printers3 in total 2 HP LaserJet 1010 Colored Printers,1 HP Desk-jet Black and white printerHP Digital ScannerIBM P5 Mainframe ServerSpecifications quaternion 1.65GHz 64-bit POWER5 processorsL2 cache 1.9MB (2-way) 3.8MB (4-way)L3 cache 36MB (2-way) 72MB (4-way)32GB of 266MHz DDR1 memoryTwo 10/100/1000 Ethernet portsOptional 2 Gigabit Fibre Channel, 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 4x InfiniBand adaptersTwo USB, two HMC and two system portsSoftware SpecificationsApplication SoftwareCRBG department Employees uses the fo llowing application softwaresMicrosoft Office 2007 2010McAfee Anti-Virus 2010Adobe Reader 8System SoftwareThe departments computers were found to be using the following system softwaresOperating System Windows XP for Desk-top PCs and Windows Vista for the Laptops.Windows NT server for mainframe server.Core Banking SolutionThe software shortly in use is UNIBANK, however T24 has been introduced in one branch in LAHORE. research SoftwareABL employees generate queries through these softwares, for example if I want to view a customers demographics I will put in a query in the Discoverer Viewer which will then seek the data from the Central DatabaseDiscoverer Viewer It is just for exhibit of data,Discoverer PLUS The queries here can withal be edited and employees have limited access to this softwareNetwork TypeAllied bank is using the client/server network because the employees easily share the data and its cheaper than others and maintainable. All the data is saved in Central Databas e (CBS) and employees can easily access it. This type of computing system provides an easy access and efficient rate of flow of data, which increase the functionality of organization. peculiarity-User and trainingIn this era of cut-throat competition and diminishing profit margins Banks are becoming more lean, service oriented and efficient. As mentioned before Banks in order to keep this trend of efficiency going upward are adopting new information systems and updating the existing ones however one barrier to this are the employees, there is already a shortage of computer literate heap in Pakistan and for this reason when new softwares or In our case a new CORE BANKNG SOLUTION is introduced it requires rigorous training posing to train the employees so that they are able to use the software.The effectiveness of core banking systems is directly related to the skills and knowledge of those operating them therefore training is an essential investment and not an expense. The trainin g session have been divided into three stagesWhen we talk of the end user its the employees themselves here, they use the information available and make different queries accordingly as mentioned before currently the Core Banking Solution (CBS) namely Unibank is being change to Temenos and this requires that the support and operations staff be trained to use this CBS. For this reason different training sessions have been organized by the Bank and the Temenos technical team itself.Apart from this Temenos, to support the contracted BANKS, also provides the following courses to their employeesOpen Training CoursesBespoke Training coursesEnd User Training (EUT)Training consultancy for design and development of EUT courseseLearning and Computer Based Training (CBT)The Train the Trainer approachThe benefits of attending these training programs include dedicated premises and training equipment, and the added advantage of minimizing interruptions for the duration of training course.Informat ion Intakes and FlowCRBG has information flow daily from all over Pakistan, the department has the responsibility to effectively manage the liabilities of the Bank.The information accessible by this department through the Information system includesDaily Monitoring of DepositsThe deposits intakes and off takes during the dayMaintaining a minimum ratio of fundsATM monitoringMonitoring the downtime of to each one ATMMonitoring which area has a consistent network/server issuesCustomer DemographicsABLs information system is data linked to NADRAs system for verification of Customers IDsCRBG has access to all the information of its customers and employees as it is responsible for managing the liabilities sectionAccount Opening guide on RateThe accounts opened each day along with their balancesEmployee Check in Check out timeThrough monitoring of this data employee efficiency can also be measured.Query Regarding an EmployeeEmployee RecordInformation FlowWe observe TRANSACTION PROCESS ING SYSTEM functional in this department apart from the Office Automation Systems, all the activities and transactions done throughout the chain of command in this department is recorded first at the Branch level then after EODs (End of Day) are Run all the data of that days transactions are transferred to the ORACLE CENTRAL DATABASE located in ABL HEAD-QUARTERS LAHORE.Real-time Monitoring is being done of this information flow by the department, once the days information is saved in the ORACLE CENTRAL DATABASE in their respected fields and tables, it can be accessed through the picket VIEWER/PLUS Software the next day by creating a query for it.Issues with the Information SystemTo function effectively as an interacting, interrelated, and interdependent feeDatabase Administratorck tool for management and staff, MIS must be useable. The five elements of a useable MIS system are timeliness, accuracy, consistency, completeness, and relevance. The usefulness of MIS is hindered whenever one or more of these elements are compromised.The IS at Allied Bank, although effective to a great extent, has certain weaknesses as we found outFrom a branch centered approach, the bank has moved to a centralized system. transactions at the branches, previously used to be stored and processed at the branches only. It was only at the day end, that all data and information was relayed to the head office. Now, however, this practice has changed. Branches only facilitate interactions with customers, whereas the information is directly send to the head office and is processed there in real time. The problem with this is the time lag that results subsequently. Data flow from the point of transaction to the head office, back to the point of transaction is a longer and hence a slower process.Also the security procedures inbuilt in the new software, Temenos, make processing slower. In the new IS, cash transactions taking place go from a Temenos account head to a yellowish brown account a nd then to the customers account. Previously, the cash transactions were directly debited/ credited to the customer account. Buffer accounts created, although increase the overall security make the processing of data slower. alike much reliance on information systems also means that in the scenario when server crashes down, or gets hanged, banking transactions will be completely disrupted.Security Measures and BackupOne of the major concerns of organizations using information technology to carry out their business processes is how to secure the data against internal and external threats. With modern advancements, mitigating information security threats has become an ongoing battle. Viruses, worms, hacker attacks, spam, phishing, and instant messaging attacks are just some of the problems. Data bank faces risk of security breaches not only at the hands of customers and outsiders, but also from the employees working within the organization. Therefore it is highly crucial to build secu rity parameters to detect whatsoever threats there might be and also to ensure data safety.At Allied Bank, data security is the thing that cannot be compromised at all. For this reason, the MIS department has taken stringent measures to ensure data security. The Corporate and Retail Department which deals primarily in confidential data of bank customers has taken numerous steps to avert security threats.Employees have individual Ids and passwords that they use to log-in to the system database. But this does not mean that all the employees have same access to the data and information. There are proper hierarchy levels which implies that there are gatekeepers at each level, supervising who access what data Password protection is there to prevent just everybody from viewing confidential data.Moreover, Allied Bank uses SSL certified encryption to secure its data channels. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web ser ver and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. SSL is an industry standard and is used in the protection of online transactions with customers.Encryption of data exchanged by customers and the bank ensures that data security, even if breached on its way, will make decrypting and understanding the data difficult.Anti-virus and anti-spam packages like McAfee Anti-Virus are also installed to secure data against viruses, spam, etc.There is also a Disaster Recovery System in place, in case of fire, raids, and other unforeseen and unexpected events. The backups are stored at both hot and refrigerated sites. The head office in Lahore is the hot site. It is the central database of Allied Bank where all the transactions taking place in the eight hundred or so branches are recorded and updated on a real time basis.The cold sites are at the twenty sevensome regional offices all over Pakistan. These cold sites are upd ated at appropriate intervals, on a weekly basis sometimes. In accordance with the State Bank of Pakistan regulation, data and information of three years is stored and maintained at these cold sites.Also, USBs are widely used as potable storage devices.Future PlansAllied bank is planning to replace the current Core Business Solution Uni Bank with Temenos.This transformation is in its phase I. The software is being tested in one branch near the Head Office in Lahore. This testing phase will end on June 30th.Training of employees is being conducted and further more sessions are in the pipelineAllied bank plans to introduce Temenos in 107 branches out of the whole network of 800 braches within six months.Implementation in further branches is still unplanned.Allied Bank has opened its branch in Kashmir and plans to extend its network and reach in the remote areas of the country.RecommendationsThe disaster recovery system at Allied Bank is inappropriate to bear the load of 800 branches. There is one common hot site of all the branches at the Head Office and cold sites at the regional offices, 27 in number. But we feel that these backups are too less, keeping the current security scenario in view where banks have even been raided and burned by mobs. Therefore the backups should be set up at places other than the bank branches.The training period for a batch of 50 people is three weeks on average. We feel that this is insufficient as the new banking system Temenos has far complex procedures as the user interface is not friendly.Proper temperature controls are needed for the server to operate efficiently. We feel that the current infrastructure is insufficient to support the system.Referenceshttp//searchsecurity.techtarget.com/topics/0,295493,sid14_tax299811,00.htmlhttp//tldp.org/HOWTO/SSL-Certificates-HOWTO/x64.htmlhttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster_recoveryhttp//info.ssl.com/article.aspx?id=10241http//www.occ.treas.gov/handbook/mis.pdfhttp//www.temenos.comhttp//ww w.abl.com.pkhttp//www.oracle.com