Up to now, after nearly 1,000 days of implementation, the Core Banking Profile system has been successfully put into operation on schedule on September 3, 2023. This is truly a source of pride and joy for all project staff in particular and the BIDV system in general...
When I received the decision to be assigned as the Team Leader of Core Banking data conversion from SIBS to Profile, I felt quite pressured and worried even though I had participated in several conversion projects before. Because this is a large project not only at BIDV but also in the banking industry and is highly complex due to the large amount of data and full banking operations.
Explore and map over 8,000 data fields
The Core Banking conversion project is not simply a data conversion from the current system to a new platform, but a conversion of both functions and data to suit the features of the new Core. In order to map data from Core SIBS to Core Profile, technical and professional staff together with the contractor spent 20 months, over 120 workshops to discuss, analyze and study data on the old and new systems, compare the differences between the two systems and from there find a suitable data mapping solution.
This is quite a difficult job due to the large workload due to: the number of data fields is over 1,000/main data table; the 2 systems have big differences, especially in overdraft accounts, co-financed loans, repayment schedules, etc.; during the GAP period during Covid-19, the Workshops were all conducted online and worked directly with contractors in English. Up to now, the total number of map data tables of the 5 subsystems is 50 tables and over 8,800 data fields have been completed to analyze the data map and build a conversion tool. BIDV plays the role of exporting raw data from Core SIBS and creating data according to a common template unified between the two systems to push into Core Profile. To reduce dependence on contractors and master data, BIDV has proactively processed about 70% of the data fields pushed into Profile, which helps BIDV when the business group changes the conversion principles, the mapping method will not affect the FIS contractor and BIDV can quickly update the rules as well as transfer the testing of results after the change.
Improve and optimize time through each rehearsal
For the conversion work, in addition to ensuring the accuracy of data, the time factor plays a very important role in project implementation. Shortening the Core conversion time will give more time for Core applications/integrated applications to check the connection with the backup Core system to handle arising situations.
After completing the GAP work of analyzing the data map, the Project Management Board completed the construction of the conversion tool and conducted 11 conversion drills. Each conversion drill is a test to test and practice the conversion time, implementation work, data quality and data accuracy. After the efforts of the conversion teams, the business team and the FIS contractor, the first TR1 conversion result in May 2022 reached 29 hours. This number is considered a very good signal when compared to the bank that also implemented Core Profile by FIS, the first conversion drill took 100 hours. Through each rehearsal, the conversion work was learned and the conversion principles were revised to suit the functions of the new system, as well as BIDV and FIS continuously optimized the conversion code, built more than 120 automatic reconciliation reports to help reduce data conversion time to 15 hours and the data scoring work was completed quickly and accurately.
[caption id="attachment_1202164" align="alignnone" width="680"]
[/caption]In order to be able to implement the Core conversion on time and not affect the service quality and customer satisfaction of BIDV during the September 2nd holiday, the entire Board of Directors and key project staff, along with the units, have jointly developed a Core conversion plan with the motto of minimizing system downtime. The Delta data conversion plan was born with the goal of converting all limited transaction data of BIDV SmartBanking services, 24/7 money transfer, Card services and VETC top-up opened during the conversion period of September 1-2, 2023.
This is actually one of the most difficult tasks of the conversion work due to the close implementation time and the big difference between the two Core systems to convert transactions in 2 delta days 01 - 02/09/2023. The Project Management Board has urgently built a delta data conversion tool and more than 50 reconciliation reports to support data scoring within 3 weeks to test in time for DR1 exercise. As a result of the exercise 1 and 2, the conversion tool has converted 98% of transaction data into Profile.
By July 2023, only 2 months before the go-live date, after many discussions, the Project Management Board found a solution to handle additional push processing of AFT/SWEEP transactions to be able to convert 100% of transactions and ensure the balance of the deposit account. The results of the 3rd and 4th drills achieved a high success rate of 99.9%, with only a few cases remaining due to insufficient overdraft limits. The loan group identified the cause and urged the Branch to standardize data daily to avoid handling situations when going live.
After 5 consecutive days and nights of preparation and official go-live implementation, the data conversion from SIBS to Core Profile and Cortex card system reached 100% including customer information data, accounts, cards and financial transactions changing delta in 2 days 01-02/09 with the conversion time as planned, even some conversion steps were earlier (such as delta 2 conversion step 2 hours earlier) helping to push up the financial transaction checking work. That is truly a great result after the hard work and full capacity of the members of the technical and professional team at the Project Management Board.
In order to be able to deploy the system on time, all project staff have devoted almost all their time and energy to the project over the past 30 months. Especially from the UAT testing phase to the recent pilot deployment, the preparation for the important go-live moment, the project staff almost had no days off. Not only working hard from morning to night, but even on weekends, the staff of the Project Management Board, Headquarters Center/Department and branches "eat and sleep" with this important work.
I feel honored and proud to be involved in the project implementation; to live, eat, and sleep with colleagues day and night to fully carry out the assigned tasks. And I see that one of the factors for the successful implementation of the project is the close support/direction of the Board of Directors and we have a very talented and enthusiastic team of staff participating in the project. All project members are like participating in a bus and heading towards the same destination, which is to successfully complete the mission of go-live Core Banking Profile.
Comment (0)