The IT provider serves the Taiwanese and Chinese professionals markets and was exploring ways to develop a high-quality core banking application package for these clients.
InfoExplorer realised that in order to develop this full-function core banking system, it needed a robust, industry standard programming language supported by powerful and easy-to-use of software tools. The other requirement was affordability of the technology. The company wanted a solution that was cost-effective in terms of both development and end-user licences.
Software technology was very important for the success of this project. InfoExplorer understood that the technology had to meet the requirements of the implementation team. This was critical for a productive development environment.
InfoExplorer needed a comprehensible and maintainable programming language that enabled rapid implementation of business logic. In addition, it wanted the product to have built-in capability to handle commercial data types. Other requirements were an easy-to-use development environment and support for mixed-language working. All these requirements were fulfilled by Micro Focus.
According to InfoExplorer's Yeun-Chung Tan director, marketing and international business division, business development department, it used Micro Focus's state-of-the-art development tools to create user-friendly and efficient banking applications that deliver real business value. The collaboration between the two companies has paid off and InfoExplorer's customers have made significant savings through increased productivity. Also, it has been able to improve customer satisfaction through better delivery of services.
Banks have to deal with a number of customers every day and this means banking applications must have fast response, deliver high throughput and provide continuous availability. They must also ensure the safety and integrity of business data, an increasing concern in today's threat filled virtual environment.
Micro Focus was able to meet all these demanding requirements and provided InfoExplorer with its solutions: Micro Focus Server Express and Micro Focus Server for COBOL.
The results are great with clients achieving 75 per cent faster time-to-market for new features. Moreover, it was able to deliver better, more efficient banking services that involved low development costs. InfoExplorer also enjoyed faster return on investment with Micro Focus' solutions.
Tan said Micro Focus software tools seemed like an ideal choice as its development staff was familiar with Micro Focus COBOL and appreciated its stability and reliability.
A comprehensive package was finally developed using the high-performance Micro Focus run-time environment. TPE or the InfoExplorer system can easily complete about one million transactions per day. This system works tirelessly delivering desired results throughout the day.
DTC Cortex provided the team with the development software. Tan noted that DTC provided skilled local support for its COBOL development environment and this helped the team quickly reach its goals.
"Because of our cost-efficient development strategy, we were able to achieve payback after only two or three sales," said Tan. "Furthermore, we have been able to offer a robust and highly functional banking system at competitive prices."
InfoExplorer is very pleased with the success of the TPE system and intends to use more solutions from Micro Focus as it expands its footprint in other geographic regions.