One login – 5 billion archived objects

Its customer base includes not only banking and other financial services institutes, but also large corporates. Since April 2003, it has focused ever more strongly on its total document management service.

In the autumn of 2005, Beta Systems was engaged to redesign the existing hardware and software in a seven figure contract. The introduction of digital archiving and search technology from Beta Systems at HypoVereinsbank has been a great success. Among the measures decided upon was a hard drive storage system from EMC Centera - it is one of the five largest EMC configurations in Europe and currently stores more than 5 billion objects.

Web-based search fully integrated in the HVB front-end

With its desire to concentrate on a few, strategic IT manufacturers, and having previously worked successfully with the company, HVB contracted Beta Systems for the expansion of its system. “They have an amazing amount of know-how in this area“, says Manfred Lang, department director for payment traffic and production management at HVB PAS. The new solution took only four months to complete as a result of close cooperation between various Beta Systems departments, EMC, the data processing centre operator HVB Information Services and HVB PAS’ own professionals. The existing data was fully transferred to EMC Centera and the new application was integrated into the PAS customer set over the 2006 Easter weekend, The new system went live without any significant obstacles. “The vast quantity of data involved meant that it was by no means a formality that this would work as smoothly as it did,” says Manfred Lang.

Group-wide connection to the archive now runs via the ‘hyperworkstation’ - the standard XP workstation for Hypo-Vereinsbank employees. Beta Systems’ web-based search engine has been fully integrated into these ‘HyperPCs’. It is bundled with Internet and Intranet access, email, Office products and other bank-specific applications. As a combined web workstation for the financial services industry, the HyperPC provides all host and local applications on one unified desktop.

Reduce to the max: Access to billions of objects from just one terminal

Where as desks used to be dominated by an individual hardware workstation with two screens and separate software, everything has now been unified in the one hyperworkstation. One single login is required for all applications to be ready for use. “This means that every user – with the requisite authorisation – has immediate access to several hundred million payment receipts, several million COLD data records, millions of universal documents outside normal payment traffic, one and a half million scanned customer letters, and much more, from any workstation within the HVB network,“ explains Jürgen Wölm, department director for Account Management and Marketing at HVB PAS.

The hyperworkstation delivers all necessary data to the user: if a letter is to be written, the system knows what the letterhead should be, and where which name and which address should be entered. Jürgen Wölm adds, “We were able to provide this functionality to our users before, but they needed 2 PCs on their desk and the login formalities were circuitous – so this is obviously a clear improvement for the user.“ The quick access to information - through optimised internal work procedures, increased efficiency in document handling, shorter processing times and lower processing costs - ensures user satisfaction. This is increasingly important in today’s competitive marketplace.

Unlimited client capacity allows many application options

A daily total of around 200-300 users work in the system, ranging from ‘super’ users processing complaints to accounting staff quickly checking something in the archive. They can now work more efficiently as they no longer need to switch from one screen to another if they wish to jump between applications. Furthermore, the storage system’s unlimited client capacity and search application make it possible to store client databases separately on the hard drive system and to enforce settings in the search engine as to which employee may process which client data and which may not.

What particularly pleases Manfred Lang in the combination of Beta and Centera technology is that he no longer needs to buy and invest in hardware in one step: the scalable technology makes it possible to buy only the necessary storage capacities or data volumes, and to buy more whenever needed.

Beta Systems Technology: enabling the development of new markets…

With the archive and search application and Beta Systems’ Front Office and FrontCollect products, HVB PAS now sees itself as ideally equipped for the challenges of the market. Since mid-2005, the service provider has been active in client sales outside the existing field of HVB and its group subsidiaries’ operations. “Beta Systems’ powerful technology enables us to focus our attention on the market. It has definitely led to a strengthening of our competitiveness“, says Manfred Lang. HVB PAS’ inclusion of FrontCollect in its portfolio is “an absolutely sensible expansion of what we have already achieved together with Beta Systems“, says Jürgen Wölm. “It allows us to offer an improved and expanded range of services to potential and existing clients. This is vitally important to our sales activities.”

Whether for credit processing, personnel files, invoice processing, payment traffic, the acquisition of Front Office as workflow extending beyond purely banking-related applications was a strategic move for HVB PAS. It is now in a position to offer workflows far beyond traditional banking requirements.

The two most important factors in the success of the Beta Systems’ project at HVB PAS are security and future proofing. “If you have systems like these operating, you can behave quite differently on the market – thanks to the new solutions, there are particular tenders which we are only now able to take part in.” summarises Jürgen Wölm.