Reducing the risk of disrupted card transactions in Germany
Credit card transactions for Barclaycard Germany customers are even less likely to be disrupted, thanks to colleagues in Technology.
By challenging the status quo, Kapil Soni, Scheme Compliance Delivery Lead, and Manoj Narvariya, Application Delivery Manager, have delivered an automated solution to decrease the risk of failed card transactions every time there is a system change.
Visa and MasterCard issue compliance enhancements that need to be implemented on Barclays’ systems twice a year. Previously, our system was upgraded by manually comparing the original code with the upgraded code - often more than 3,000 entries - leaving the team with very little or no time for reviews and testing. With the possibility of the system changes affecting processing, there was a risk that customers could experience failed card transactions.
Reducing a 330 hour manual effort to just 90 minutes
Questioning what could be done better, Kapil and Manoj worked together to develop an automated solution, speeding up the code analysis and comparison effort from 330 hours to just 90 minutes, and giving the team more time for testing.
Kapil tells us more: “Manoj and I had a very good understanding of the manual process. After looking at it end-to-end, using data, and thinking about how we could improve efficiency, we designed, then developed an automated solution.”
“The new solution performs a comparison between the new and existing code and generates a report of the changes,” adds Manoj. “This has enabled us to get updates into a testing environment more quickly, allowing more time to make sure the changes do not impact customers.”
Delivering a solution that will benefit others
As MasterCard and Visa mandate the compliance enhancements twice a year, Kapil and Manoj created a solution that was adaptable, efficient and easy to use. Although this currently caters to Barclaycard Germany, the concept of automation can be used across all of the bank’s card processing systems.