Business
Alaric Technology Underpins Jamaica Mobile Money Launch
Press Release
Alaric is working with Transcel on a Development Bank of Jamaica project to create the infrastructure to deliver mobile financial services to the financially under-served segment of the population in Jamaica.
The Mobile Money for Microfinance (M3) project will leverage the channel of a Development Bank of Jamaica-approved microfinance institutions (MFIs) to provide consumers with the capability to carry out low-cost person-to-person mobile money transfers and payments. Transcel will provide the microfinance institutions with facilities to mobile-enable, streamline and integrate lending, borrowing and repayment processes.
The National Commercial Bank (NCB) in Jamaica, a principal partner in the M3 project, will provide debit cards linked to M3 accounts, allowing the consumers to access their money through an Automated Teller Machine (ATM/ABM) or a merchant with a point of sale (POS) device.
In the Transcel M3 platform, deployed for the Development Bank of Jamaica, all bank integration and financial transactions are implemented within Alaric’s transaction processing framework. Alaric’s Authentic and Fractals products will perform account opening and transaction validation checks, manage the balance of those accounts, provide authorization of mobile transactions and synchronization with NCB card services switch, and deliver full fraud detection and prevention functions.
In Jamaica, as in many other countries around the world, there is a large unbanked population which has limited access to traditional financial service providers and is typically forced to conduct all transactions in cash. They have to physically store or carry their earnings or remittance receipts, leaving them vulnerable to crime. Lacking access to regulated lines of credit, they are subjected to questionable practices of local money lenders.
“We are committed to bringing more citizens into the formal financial system,” said Milverton Reynolds, Managing Director of the Development Bank of Jamaica.
“The role of the Development Bank of Jamaica at the heart of this transformative project ensures that many who have been previously excluded will finally have access to modern financial services and will be able to manage their money in a secure, regulated environment. The involvement of a company such as Alaric, whose payments and transactional security products are used by some of the largest financial services companies in the world, gives us confidence that the transactions on the M3 platform will be safe and free from fraud. This will pave the way for all parties to confidently embrace the convenience and cost-effectiveness of mobile financial services – with all the spin-off benefits to business, consumers and the economy as a whole.”
“Mobile phones have reached such a high level of penetration in Jamaica (115 percent) that they provide the perfect vehicle to gain access to financial services.
The initiative, started by the Development Bank of Jamaica and Transcel, incorporates learnings from other mobile money projects and has been very carefully planned to meet any possible demand,” said Mike Alford, CEO at Alaric.
“Transcel is committed to delivering a future-ready mobile transaction hub that meets the security and interoperability requirements of the entire multiplicity of actors in the mobile money eco-system – financial institutions, mobile operators, retailers, and payment networks,” said Hugo Daley, Transcel’s CEO. “The partnership with Alaric takes us a long way towards a robust, zero-tolerance, fraud prevention platform that serves the needs of emerging e-payments service providers in Jamaica.”
Authentic is a modern, ultra high-performance EFT authorization and routing system managing transactions from all channels across the enterprise from ATM and POS to ecommerce and mobile. Unlike conventional payments processing software, Authentic absorbs change with ease. It combines unrivalled flexibility of deployment with efficiency of processing. Providing the payments engine for global networks and large processors, Authentic has achieved in excess of ten thousand transactions per second in recent benchmark tests.
Fractals is an intelligent fraud detection and prevention framework suitable for PSPs, online merchants, card issuers, acquirers and payments processors. When used ‘in-flight’, illegal transactions can be detected and stopped before a transaction is completed. Proprietary mathematical models incorporate self-learning allowing the model to automatically adapt to new fraud trends and retain its effectiveness. The Fractals Rules Engine enables fraud analysts to create and deploy powerful fraud detection rules within minutes, delivering substantial reductions in fraud losses. In the rapidly evolving world of electronic payments, Fractals benefits from continuous investment and research and development, ensuring that it remains at the forefront of fraud detection.
About Alaric: Alaric is a global supplier of fraud prevention and payments processing products. Alaric’s products allow financial institutions, processors and retailers to manage ATM, POS, ecommerce and mobile payment or banking transactions, deliver complex multi-channel payments integration and carry out enterprise fraud and risk management.
Alaric’s focus is on customer empowerment ensuring its users can stay ahead of the market. Alaric’s products are designed to be rapidly customisable by customers allowing them to take strategic control of their system investments. Alaric’s customers get the best of both worlds: an unprecedented degree of control over their solutions while retaining all the benefits and economies of using product-based solutions. The Alaric product line up comprises ‘Fractals’ fraud prevention and ‘Authentic’ payments technology
About Transcel: Transcel was founded to deliver the next-generation of on-demand financial services based on intelligent mobile systems technology. The Company’s services have been designed to:
1). meet the regulatory, market and security requirements in the North America/Caribbean Basin transnational financial corridor;
2). bypass unnecessary costs associated with traditional financial transactions;
and 3) provide the services interoperability infrastructure that supports the complex partnerships required to deliver cross-border mobile money services.
Management brings a unique approach to the venture by leveraging world-class software development and a highly scalable business model. The Company is positioned as a services platform and a services bridge to deliver and interconnect emerging new services. The Company’s strategy aims to capture a leading role in mobile microfinance and a dominant position in the marketplace for cross-border person-to-person transfers in the Caribbean region.
About the Development Bank of Jamaica: The Development Bank of Jamaica’s mission is to facilitate economic growth by assisting in the development and modernization of all viable enterprises in the agriculture, agro-processing, services, manufacturing and tourism sectors of the economy.
The Bank provides funding and technical assistance to major projects and programmes but has expanded and improved its assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises – which are widely recognised as the engine of economic growth and development, especially in small economies.
The Development Bank of Jamaica does not lend funds directly to individuals or promoters of projects. Instead, funds are channelled through partners referred to as Approved Financial Institutions (AFI) which include commercial and merchant banks, and credit unions; and Micro Finance Institutions (MFI). These institutions provide the initial credit evaluation and loan supervision before on-lending to clients with viable projects in the productive sector. The Development Bank of Jamaica’s other major function is the privatization of Government-owned assets. In addition, since 2012, the Development Bank of Jamaica has been designated the secretariat for the Government’s Public-Private Partnerships programme.