the business
Payment services between all legal entities in the Republic of Macedonia

markets served
Legal entities in Macedonia

about
Systems Union
Payment Operational Service (POS) is responsible for payment services between all legal entities in the Republic of Macedonia (former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), including industrial companies, banks, financial and government institutions and public organizations. They serve about 70,000 accounts, processing 100,000 transactions daily.

Situation Analysis

The banking industry in Macedonia is becoming more market-oriented and responsive to customers. Financial Institutions are looking for new ways to attract customers and better ways to support existing ones. To increase its level of customer service, POS wanted to develop an open system that would allow customers (legal entities) to download payment accounts and other important information. In addition, POS wanted to deploy desktop banking, with customers being able to perform transactions online.

A small development team from POS attended several Microsoft® BackOffice™ and Windows NT® Server seminars and presentations in Macedonia and England. They decided to consider new technology from Microsoft and their partner, Login Systems.

"At that time we looked for technology which could solve the disadvantages of the existing system." said Marin Piperkoski, head of the system software and data security sector at POS. "First, we started with Unix, but we realized that we needed a more powerful system, yet easy to deploy. Our prerequisites were a secure operating system suitable for financial institutions, high performance, scalability, and easy administration. In addition, we needed a database which is online transaction coordinated and seamlessly integrated with the operating system. These features and visual tools for developing solutions were the reasons we chose Microsoft Windows NT Server as our network operating system and Microsoft SQL Server™ for Windows NT as our database server."

Goals.

• To develop a flexible, portable and stable system.
• Easy-to-use desktop application for customers based on Microsoft Windows® and Windows 95 operating systems
• Client and server use the same interface (Windows and Windows NT Server)
• C2 class security for the whole system
• Firm foundation for adding new services at a later date
• Faster information delivery to customers
• Decreased cost of manipulating data for accounting, analysis, marketing and sales
• Better communication with the Central Bank of Macedonia and other commercial banks
• Decreased costs associated with manipulating huge amounts of paper
• Improved market position for POS

Team

A project team was established with members from POS and Login Systems. POS experts developed the procedures for communicating with the UNISYS host and Windows NT Server as well as implementing the Microsoft SQL Server database and developing the SQL Server stored procedures and views.

The team from Login Systems developed the banking desktop application and helped to manage and develop server applications for maintaining and administering the server system.

"The whole thing happened in spring last year." said Marin Piperkoski. "After several contacts with Login Systems, we knew that we could make something new and very professional. At the beginning of June 1995 we set up the goals and started to make some experiments. After a really short time we had a full functioning system. At September 1995 we started with the user interface. It is more difficult to launch a product to customers when you don't know their skills, systems and so on. We need tools which are powerful and easy to use. We decided to develop with Visual Basic® 4.0 Enterprise edition. Now I can tell that I am very pleased that we made a great job."

Solution Descriptions

Client-server system based on Microsoft® technology and products.

Integration between UNISYS hosts and Windows NT Server

The server applications are based on the Microsoft Windows NT Server operating system and Microsoft SQL Server for Windows NT. It is used on the servers in all affiliates of POS. Affiliates are connected by X.25 communication using Eicon WAN adapters and WAN Services for Windows NT.

The server applications were developed with stored procedures and customized applications developed with the Microsoft Visual Basic® programming system. These procedures download the data from UNISYS host machines and convert it for the SQL Server database. The whole system operates online 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Banking Desktop Application

The banking desktop application runs on the client machine at customers' site. It connects to the server at POS via DialUp Networking with a standard phone and modem and allows the customer to download the payment account data to a local computer in MDB database format. The customer can monitor payments and make various financial analyses. The customer can print the information using predefined reports, or export the information to Microsoft Excel for further analysis or for creation of complex documents. This information can be used to help the customer make better business decisions.

The client application was developed with Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0, Enterprise Edition. Some of the functions were developed in the Microsoft Visual C++® development system and compiled as a DLL library. The client application uses these functions for RAS connections to the server.

For client application, several Microsoft technologies were used:

Microsoft JET. The data transferred from the server is stored in a Microsoft JET database (Access MDB). The customer can attach the tables so that the data can be easily loaded in the SQL Server database for better performance or security.

Microsoft ODBC (Open Database Connectivity). ODBC is used as an interface from the application to the SQL Server.

OLE Automation. The application can export queried data to Microsoft Excel. For better reports, OLE Automation is used as an interface.

RAS or DialUp Networking. The customer can use standard RAS client or DialUp Networking scripts for a modem connection to Windows NT and SQL Server. But for Macedonian customers, some of them with little knowledge of English or computers, the application must be easy to use. So the team developed several procedures in Visual C++ using RAS API from Win32 SDK® for better integration with the client application. Now, customers can connect to POS with one click of the mouse and with messages in the Macedonian language.

"I'm very excited about this new technology from Microsoft", said Venko Gligorov, manager from Login Systems. "We have done an excellent job in a really short time. We started with Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Enterprise Beta in the summer 1995. After launching in December 1995, we just recompiled the project. All I can say is that Visual Basic has been my favorite system for developing solutions since its 1.0 version. It's even better with its new features for 32 bit computing: remote automation, ODBC32, OLE DLLs. The client application based on 32 bit OS has better performance 30% to 50% over the 16 bit version. We will continue to improve the 32 bit version of the application using more systems controls from Windows 95."

Business Benefits

Since the initial deployment of the banking desktop application in May 1996, this unique system has been used by hundreds of customers across the country.

They appreciate:

• Easy-to-use interface (Windows 95) and integration with their legacy systems.
• Integration with popular desktop applications such as Word and Microsoft Excel, and other Microsoft Office applications
• Accurate online status of account information for better decision support
• Ability to generate various reports
• Ability to create databases of company customers, accounts for taxes, and other information
• Accounting features that eliminate the need for entering data manually for accounting and bookkeeping tasks
• Lower customer costs and better productivity
• Wide-spread use of technology is good for the Macedonian economy

Epilogue

POS recently established an Intranet site based on Microsoft Internet Information Server 3.0 (IIS) that is tightly integrated with SQL Server. Now customers are able to connect to the POS server and browse currency lists, important government accounting documents, records of financial activities and other types of information. Customers can also see payments data via Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0, and, thanks to Internet Database Connector, IIS can search in the SQL database for many online lists.

The Intranet site was developed with Microsoft FrontPage® 97 and Microsoft Visual Interdev™ web development tools. Customers can download a customized version of Internet Explorer that is configured with the Internet Explorer Administration Kit. Eventually, the site will be extended with IIS Active Server Pages and ActiveX™ documents and controls developed with Visual Basic 5.0.

"This Microsoft technology offers us huge opportunities for extending the system and services," said Vlado Blazevski, head of the application development sector at POS. "Using triggers and stored procedures on Microsoft SQL Server eliminates thousands of lines in COBOL with just several SQL statements. More importantly, SQL Server offers server-forced integrity of databases and everything is transaction oriented."

"We are very satisfied with Login Systems, as our solution provider, and Microsoft, as our technology provider." said Nikola Kacarski, general manager of POS. "Along with them, we have made a system we are proud of. We would be very happy to present it to everyone who is interested. It is a basic primer of how new technology from Microsoft can be implemented in financial institutions, and in industry in general."

Products and Technology Used

Development systems and tools:

Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0
Microsoft SQL Server for Windows NT 6.5
Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise 4.0
Microsoft Visual C++ 4.2
Microsoft Office Professional 95
Microsoft Access Upsizing Tools

Operating systems for clients supported:

Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.51 and 4.0

More Information
Venko Gligorov, Login Systems
Telephone: +389 91 363 711
Fax: +389 91 363 774
Email: venkog@lotus.mpt.com.mk

Marin Piperkoski, Payment Operational Service
Telephone: +389 91 223 673
Fax: +389 91 222 346
Email: marinp@lotus.mpt.com.mk

Last Modified: June 23, 1997