The integrated banking solution, BANKS, designed to meet the information processing and management challenges facing the banking industry today is currently used in hundreds of banks' branches across the world.

"As Jordan moves through the information technology age, Jordan Commercial Bank endeavours to accommodate, if not drive, the growing banking demands to ensure Jordanians are kept up with global advances in technology, specifically in banking services," Dr. Jawad Hadid, ceo and general manager of Jordan Commercial Bank stated. Jordan Commercial Bank purchased BANKS from Computer and Communications Systems, Amman (CCS), a turn-key solutions provider specialising in various business areas, in particular the banking and financial sectors.

This technological implementation, the first in the Middle East, is just one in a line of developments that Jordan Commercial Bank has promised to undertake as part of its efforts to transform the Jordanian banking landscape and optimise the level of efficiency and quality of banking services in Jordan. Last week JCBank signed an agreement with CreditCard Services Company Jordan LLC (CSC) to provide MasterCard full-fledged credit card services' offerings such as prepaid, credit, and debit cards to its customers. While JCBank just recently completed its latest employee training workshop, an undertaking it claims is integral to keeping its employees "the heart and soul of its enterprise" up to par with the very best in international standards.

The banking solution, BANKS, is embedded with state-of-the-art features including 7x24 banking through a variety of delivery channels and straight through processing (stp) offering end-to-end event-driven processing capabilities. The open architecture also enables the system to fully interface with existing information technology infrastructure as well as telecommunications networks (S.W.I.F.T., Telex, Reuters, etc.). The system will provide Jordan Commercial Bank with comprehensive security features that are built into the software to manage system access, enforce confidentiality of information, ensure data integrity and contain frauds.

Mr. Robert Hazboun, deputy general manager of Computer and Communications Systems, Amman (CCS), stated: "This reliable open technology platform, is built around Oracle's relational database with a choice of client/server or n-tier (web-enabled/thin-client) architecture providing portability, scalability and 7x24 availability. BANKS is a multilingual, multi currency system with multi institution and multi branch capabilities, recognising the business processing demands for clients in international banking environments."