Legacy system overhaul mitigates risk, enhances user experience
“The enhanced risk assessment system has made a huge difference to our business.
Customers’ applications are now accurately processed faster in-store, making it easier for them to buy things. Our business growth ambitions are supported by the concurrent processing and assessment of multiple customer applications.
We worked collaboratively together with proactive communication, regular progress reviews and timely attention to resolve issues as they arose resulting in a quality, problem free implementation.”
Colin Smith - CIO, Fisher & Paykel Finance
Solution snapshot
Customer
Fisher & Paykel Finance Limited
Industry
Finance
Business need
Fisher & Paykel Finance’s consumer lending application Core Risk Assessment module had reached the end-of-life. The company needed to replace the legacy system to improve scalability, maintainability, ease of configuration and enhance the customer buying experience.
Solution
Using the Agile project management methodology, Datacom worked closely with the Fisher & Paykel Finance Information Services team to deliver a robust and easily maintained replacement system that manages concurrent requests.
Benefits
- Enhanced customer experience through improved credit assessment processing and response times
- Downtime eliminated with the new application delivering reliable service
- Lower overheads were achieved as support time and the associated manual recovery costs from previous stability problems were reduced
- Improved responsiveness to evolving business requirements through suitable system architecture, updated documentation and an increased number of staff with skills able to support the system
- Human resource development as more staff are skilled in the system, through the use of current technology and up-to-date system documentation
- The integrity and security of data were improved through the new technology and design
- Increased compliance by alignment to Fisher & Paykel Finance’s preferred application platforms of Ingres and Java
Case study
Aging system unable to support business growth
The Fisher & Paykel Finance Group (FPF), provide high-quality financial services to New Zealanders through its Q Card, Farmers Card, Equipment Finance and Consumer Insurance products. Today, these services are delivered to over 400,000 people and are focussed on the financial needs of customers – both investors and borrowers.
A key element to successful lending is effective risk assessment. However, the company’s Core Risk Assessment (CRA) module was outdated and required an overhaul to meet future business needs. Originally launched in 1997, this important module was used to assess credit applications and provide credit approval decisions that ultimately determined the quality of the Debtor’s Ledger.
Over time, the CRA module had become unwieldy to update due to continuous modifications introduced to support changing business needs. The reference data was hard to manage and the aging technology (Visual Objects) prevented the processing of concurrent requests – resulting in performance issues and ‘timing out’ of systems in dealers’ stores. Maintaining the currency of system documentation became challenging and only a limited number of staff had the understanding and skills necessary to maintain this important system.
Collaborative approach transforms system
As a result of being involved in a number of previously successful projects for FPF, Datacom was invited to collaboratively re-develop the CRA module. Working closely with the in-house FPF Information Services team, Datacom applied their pragmatic ‘can-do’ approach to the ORiginating Credit Assessment (ORCA) project.
The project aimed to provide a custom built replacement CRA system that would meet a number of new objectives for FPF. To deliver on these objectives, the team used Java technology and the Agile project management methodology, allowing easy integration and any issues to be identified and remedied early in the development. This meant delivery timeframes were met and a quality solution was developed.
The ORCA system design adheres to the principles of integrity, security, reliability, scalability, performance and maintainability and represents a true transformational leap forward from the previous CRA module.
The ORCA system is now flexible (allowing business rules to be easily configured or changed), and well structured (built on an easy to maintain technical framework). Building the new application also allowed architectural compliance with FPF’s preferred application platforms of Ingres and Java.
Today, all FPF consumer credit applications are processed by ORCA.
Key points
- Datacom replaced aging technology with a reliable new risk assessment system that reduced costs and improved customer responsiveness and experience.
- Datacom met the timeframes through the use of Agile methodology and the complex project was completed in just 11 months.
- The new system is an easily configurable, changeable, efficient, accurate and fully documented credit assessment system.
- Credit assessment capacity for customers and merchants was increased to enable growth in new and repeat business.
- There is now full transparency of the assessment rules and parameters in force, and improved transparency of the reasons for declined or referred credit applications helps both FPF staff and their customers.