Standard Chartered Bank Pakistan has seamlessly migrated to Phoenix switch from CR2 Sparrow. At this fastest growing international bank in Pakistan with 176 branches spread across 39 cities, Phoenix now serves as a transaction platform that enables the alternate distribution channels of the bank.
SCBPL, after acquiring Union Bank in Pakistan, had decided to move to a switch that can help it in the rapidly changing market dynamics of the country and to keep it market competitive in the cut throat competition among the banks.
The bank had three options: 1) to outsource the ATM switching functions to EuroNet where most of the countries in the group had been going. 2) If switch was to be in-house, upgrade Sparrow to its latest version. 3) To implement Phoenix.
After a lengthy evaluation phase and the due diligence, the bank selected Phoenix as the switch for consolidating its remote banking operations. It is worthwhile to mention that before the merger with Union Bank, SCB was using an older version of CR2's sparrow and Union was using Phoenix to drive its e-banking services. Phoenix was selected over the options, each of which are world class solutions, because of the flexibility it offers, the cost-effectiveness inherent to the local company, time to market the solutions and its functionalities.
Besides serving as an ATM switch and an integrated delivery channel manager, the bank is benefiting from TPS' comprehensive monitoring solution, CMS and reconciliation system. Switch migration of a large and complex bank like SCBP, being a multi-pronged activity, was divided into several stages.
The biggest challenge encountered during the migration was to maintain continuity of the e-banking services at the bank and existing alternate delivery channels. Phoenix ensured that the bank's customers do not face disruption in the services during the cutover from Sparrow to Phoenix. The smooth migration brought the alternate delivery channels of ex-Union and SCBPL together; creating one single real-time financial transaction processing system, and giving to the customers a single and unified view of the entire SCB's alternate delivery channels.
Phoenix, implemented as a unified ATM controller and a debit card switch, is acting as Debit CMS, Visa debit cards issuer, acquirer of Visa and MasterCard cards and ATM controller and the integrated channel manager. It's scalable, modular design enabled the bank to integrate the ATM channel onto a single platform - and add various new services and delivery channels as and when required - while managing the ever-increasing transaction volumes.