Solutions for sending money abroad have varied from Western Union and MoneyGram to smaller startup companies.

Viamericas (www.viamericas.com), a Bethesda, Maryland-based company, is one of the more innovative companies that have emerged to provide services for international remittances in Latin America and the Caribbean.

International money transfers using Check21

Viamericas had been using a Check21 system provided by a nationwide bank to fund remittances. The Check Clearing for the 21^st Century Act (Check21) of 2003 provides guidelines and standards in check truncation. Check truncation is the practice of using an electronic image of a check to substitute for a physical check when presenting to the receiving bank for settlement.

With its fast rate of growth Viamericas knew it would grow out of its bank-provided solution, and had to develop their own solution. But their network of nationwide independent agents had grown accustomed to their current system, presenting a challenge: how to create an alternative solution that was acceptable to their agents.

Developing a secure system to rival large banks

Viamericas needed to develop a system that satisfied their agents’ usability requirements, provided the functionality of larger bank solutions, as well as additional functionality that allowed them to become more competitive.

They turned to Softjourn, a development firm specializing in designing and developing secure financial applications, with headquarters in the United States and development facilities in the Ukraine.

Softjourn designed, developed and tested a centralized server application and a client check truncation application. They also worked with Viamerica’s current Check21 solution provider to design, develop and test the sending of electronic cash letters and the receiving of electronic returns files between the bank and Viamericas.

The new solution also included functionality which was not available with the current solution, such as the ability to put checks on hold automatically, based on system-wide restrictions established at the central Viamericas location.

An integral part of the new solution was to research, test, and recommend the appropriate recognition software to be used for the final solution.  Initially Softjourn created a long list of potential OCR (Optical Character Recognition) vendors; including open source vendors and large-scale commercial products. The Check21 application being developed was to replace the one that Viamerica’s was paying for on a subscription basis, from their bank.  That solution included high-end OCR recognition including recognizing CAR – Courtesy Amount Recognition (the amount in characters) and LAR – Legal Amount Recognition (the hand written amount). The solution Softjourn chose also had to take in to account that almost 50% of the checks processed by the new system were going to be hand written, so the OCR software would have to be able to recognize the amounts on a lot of different checks. Having a .NET version was also a requirement as the new Check21 system was being written in .NET.

Some of the vendors evaluated included:
http://www.altova.com/download/authentic/xml_db_form_editor_desktop.html
http://www.dart.com/products.aspx
http://www.infragistics.com/dotnet.aspx
http://www.leadtools.com/SDK/Raster/Raster-Products-n.htm
http://www.visionshape.com/Evalrequest.aspx

As well as several higher-end solutions:

http://www.miteksystems.com/products_quickstrokes.asp
www.a2ia.com
www.orbograph.com
www.byteway.it

Evaluation included installing all of the different products, creating test image files based on real check images, supplied by our client, and comparing the results.

After initial results and creating a short list of possible vendors, Softjourn recommended the QuickStrokes Banking Edition, from Mitek. The product included ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition), OCR, MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition), CAR and Business LAR. It did not include hand-printed LAR and was therefore less expensive. Mitek did have a QuickStrokes Premier Banking Edition which could read the LAR field, but in most cases it was not necessary. Recognition results averaged 92% with the Premier edition and 78% with the regular Banking edition.

Using bank functionality to compete with banks

Check truncation systems are usually the realm of banks, but smaller firms, such as Viamericas, can also use this functionality.

Softjourn helped Viamericas develop their own system, allowing them to compete more effectively against their competitors and larger banks.

Luis Gonzalez, CFO of Viamericas, said: “This project puts our company in a competitive advantage with regards to our competitors because we were able to emulate what large banks are doing quickly and effectively even before some of them launch their own product, providing unbanked customers with the means to use financial services.”

Their agents also liked the solution.

Esteban Bernal, Viamericas’ VP of Engineering, said: “Our agents like working with the new Viacheck system over our old solution. Their work is consolidated on a couple of screens making it much easier for them to use.”

Conclusion

The United Nations estimates that 191 million immigrants send money to relatives back home.  The World Bank estimates that $550 billion was remitted globally in 2008.

This is a huge market with a huge opportunity for financial services providers, and advances in technological solutions making it easier to securely transfer and process money abroad, has enabled more firms to take part in this lucrative market.

But financial processing applications are complex. If you want your share of the billions traveling back and forth across borders, you need the right partner to help you.

Back then I wrote, “Most information on outsourcing, books written lately, magazine articles and blogs have been geared towards larger companies. On one hand this is great, it is great to learn from the big guys who have been doing this a while. On the other hand, it leads to a lot of discussion on areas that may not be applicable for a smaller firm who needs 2, 3 or 15 persons offshore, not hundreds.”   The idea behind the blog was to provide information to entrepreneurs with new company ideas, or smaller firms who would have smaller teams of software engineers.  I emphasized the objective with the tag line, “Outsourcing is not just for the big guys!”

In order to determine if this topic was still relevant, one of the things I looked at was what Softjourn’s clients have told us over the years.  Six years ago the quote from one of our start-up clients was, “My fears and concerns (with offshoring) where alleviated by having a local contact who was not just relaying information back and forth but who seemed to understand that he needed to have a firm grasp of my goals before assigning the work overseas. Every attempt has been made to provide an excellent product. Issues were addressed promptly and through the entire process I felt that I had a partner not a contractor.” So clearly there is concern over the location and the distance.

A more recent quote from a client looks like this, “It was great to find someone to work with us as a collaborative partner. We have never done this before so sometimes we didn’t know what we were asking for and we were figuring things out as we went along. When you’re creating something totally new it is absolutely necessary to have a partner offer suggestions, be proactive, and think 3 steps ahead instead of merely executing what we said. I can’t thank you enough!” Obviously more recently, there is less emphasis on where the people are, and more on how they can be an effective partner and assist in getting a company, or a new service, up and running.

When I first started this blog, it was less common for smaller companies to want to work with remote teams of software engineers. Start-ups especially though, we are working too fast, how can we work remotely? Now, however, it is expected that start-ups will work with remote teams; it is considered basically obligatory. It is also more and more common for smaller companies to have team members all over the world. But with the move to more global teams, there still comes the challenges such as: managing time differences, collaborating with individuals in multiple locations, making sure everyone is on the same page, managing different sets of goals, and so on. This blog has always been about helping start-ups get their businesses launched and helping small and medium sized businesses add new services and improve on their current ones.  Going forward I will be placing increasing emphasis on helping these same companies overcome the challenges they are facing while trying to grow their businesses with global teams, after all, “Global teams are not just for the big guys”!

Point number one in the counter presentation: open source software is safe – safer than proprietary solutions, such as Microsoft, which are often rife with security loopholes (noting of course that it does depend a lot on how the application is built).

Hundreds of security and financial transaction applications have been built using open source development tools and frameworks, and supported by open source operating systems, application servers and web servers.

Modern, cost-effective online payment processing solutions for merchants

Case-in-point: startup company Noca, a California-based firm, has developed an innovative online payment processing solution that enables merchants to start accepting payments online right away and avoid the high fees of credit and debit card processing systems by offering a new type of electronic checking solution.

Offering near instantaneous approvals of merchant accounts, the Noca system avoids the pitfalls of traditional e-check systems by offering identify and account verification services as an online, in stream process.

This is ideal for merchants who were previously skittish about using an electronic checking system due to the inability to automatically and instantaneously verify a payer’s identity.

Help developing a testing environment

To get their new service off the ground, Noca needed to develop a comprehensive testing environment to allow potential merchant customers to test out the system before committing to the service.

The project required deep knowledge of several open source development tools and frameworks, and detailed coordination of several intricate pieces that comprised the complete system.

For example, Noca needed to:

• Develop and integrate credit card processing
• Develop a plug-in for Ubercart ecommerce shopping cart
• Set up complex email processes, with specific event handlers using an upgraded email system
• Improve their notification system
• Modify their marketplace functionality
• Develop security features such as the use of PIN numbers

Noca decided to turn to Softjourn, which specializes in developing financial transaction applications, front-end development, and open-source software.

Complete secure open source solution

Using tools such as an open source application server, Dojo and Eclipse development frameworks, Drools business rules management system, and other open source web service frameworks, Softjourn developed a complete testing environment for Noca.

Noca’s CEO PJ Gupta was so pleased with the work our partner did they decided to extend their assignment to work on core payment processing applications.

“I have been very pleased with the work that Softjourn has done to assist us in getting our testing environment in place for our clients, and I look forward to continue to work with the team!” Said Gupta.

So is open source secure?

Though it sounds counter-intuitive, having hundreds if not thousands of developers worldwide helping to make open source development tools and platforms secure makes open source a more viable solution than proprietary technologies.

cutting-edge online payment processing company Noca is betting its whole business model on open source software.

But if you want to build your financial application with open source software, and get it right the first time, contact Accelerance, and we can arrange for an interview with Softjourn who specializes in developing open source financial applications for some of the most demanding financial services firms today.

Shocking statistics? Maybe. But it is a great business opportunity for savvy financial services firms who want to make life easier for employers who hire unbanked employees.

Firms such as an Atlanta, Georgia-based PayPartners which offers large companies the ability to pay their employees with pre-loaded debit cards are one such company

PayPartners provides unbanked employees with a safe and inexpensive alternative to check-cashing firms and pawn shops, who often charge between 1 and 6 percent of the face value of a paycheck, in order to cash it.

Additionally, PayPartners provides debit cards so companies can reimburse employees for travel and expenses, and incentive payment cards so employers can reward their employees for contests or meeting company goals.

Building a complete solution: credit card processing, international payments and customer self-service

PayPartners needed to build a complete solution that not only included credit card processing, but also enabled employers to make international payments and cut customer service costs.

Several years back, Pay Partners turned to Softjourn to help them continually develop and support their solution.

Softjourn helped PayPartners build a system that enables employers to issue, re-issue, and move monies in real time, provide role-based access to information, provide real-time reporting capabilities, and enable employees to enroll for their service online.

Financial applications and user interface design: the ideal combination

PayPartners chose Softjourn because of their extensive financial expertise, such as knowledge of credit card processing, online payment processing, and international money transfers.

However, they also needed a firm with the front-end experience to build a self-service portal that both employees and employers could use, cutting customer service costs. Softjourn fit the bill.

PayPartners CEO Ryan Powers stated: “The work …. done to this point has helped us streamline our operations and has eliminated the need for us to hire customer service reps….we were able to extend more control to our clients which allows them to better manage their payment process.”

Enabling international payments

PayPartners needed to issue international cards for companies with overseas employees. They also had to replace the Lynk processing system with the i2C and Transcard processors.  Softjourn assigned a two-person team to help them with this successful move.

Check Authentication

In early 2011, PayPartners took a major step forward in the market of cash and checks. For persons who have traditional bank accounts, when they cash different types of checks, depending on the type of check, the funds will be “provisionally” available only, and if the check bounces the funds will be reversed. Because of the risk of many checks such as handwritten payroll checks or two-party checks, it is often difficult for unbanked persons to be able to cash those checks. There is no option for an unbanked person to have funds “provisionally” available.

To help alleviate this problem, PayPartners developed a new BranchOffice solution for check cashers (retail banks initially).  As part of this solution PayPartner’s existing Back Office (BO) service was integrated with CHEXAR®’s check cashing and guarantee solution which lets check cashers safely cash over 20 types of checks, the types of checks which are often difficult for unbanked persons to cash.

CHEXAR is the national leader for technology and solutions that enable clients to cash any check and provide  unbanked customers the option to receive cash for the check and/or load that cash on to a card, such as PayPartners Prepaid Card.

As part of the integration with Chexar, the following functionality was included in the new BranchOffice solution; check verification, online chat, risk management evaluation and immediate card deposit. This new PayPartners’ BranchOffice solution lets bank departments or financial organizations work with customer’s checks in banks, stores, etc.

Since BranchOffice is to be deployed in financial institutions, it was necessary to add additional risk mitigation and ID verification features to meet financial institution’s compliance requirements. These requirements include giving FI’s the ability to control and set users limits such as: maximum number of checks that can be cashed in one day, maximum total amount of checks that can be cashed in one day, maximum single check amount to be cashed, etc.

Chexar’s system will allow clients using BranchOffice to validate the authenticity of a check and to perform any required compliance verification such as OFAC and CIP on the customer. Each financial institution will determine what forms of identification will be accepted. The customer will have the option of having all of the value of the check (minus the check cashing fee) converted to cash or having all, or some, of the value of the check deposited to a prepaid card (minus any applicable fees).

Check scanning was enabled using a scanner and software from ScanShell which reads the MICR line on the check.  The check amount is entered manually by the operator.  Since PayPartners’ BO works under Linux/Apache and the scanner software uses Windows drivers, Softjourn integrated the two using Active-X components.  According to Yuriy Kropelnytsky, Sr. Developer and Project Lead for Pay Partners, “I was very glad to work with people which considered me not just a third party programmer. I felt like a full member of the PP team and was able to make my own decisions and come up with creative solutions for the service and features PP wanted to provide.”

Technologies used:

The complete system, including the credit card processing, full payment life-cycle, reporting, roles-based access, and self-service portal was built on the Ubuntu operating system using PHP, Javascript, HTML, XML and C++ on a PostgresSQL database and AJAX development tools.

Next Steps

In today’s web savvy world, even the non-banked have access to the Internet, through inexpensive home computers or through the new generation of web-enabled smartphones.

Finding a development firm that combines deep expertise developing financial applications, such as credit card processing, online payment processing, international money transfers, and mobile banking is hard enough.

Finding a firm with financial expertise and user interface design experience for the web is a rare bonus.

Contact Softjourn for more information on how we can help you build a financial application for the web.

A number of events (think of sporting events or a concert tour) use online and printed ticketing solutions that require a venue to accept tickets in multiple, changing locations. Developing a barcode scanner for an iPod Touch opened up a whole new world of possibilities for our customer.  By taking advantage of mobile devices, our customer introduced a new level of convenience to both event goers and venue employees checking tickets at the door, and not to mention they added the “cool” factor to the ticket taking process.

During development, we broke down the project into two phases:

Phase One: The user experience + ticketing software integration:

We developed the main functionality of the barcode scanning app which included having a master list of events with the dates of performances, scanning for a selected event, and programming scan in/scan out options (which included data displays alerting ticket takers to VIPs, groups and those with special needs).

Phase One also included the development of the web services, enabling the interaction between the mobile app and the client’s main ticketing solution.

Phase Two: Additional functionality:

In the second phase, our programmers expanded the basic functionality of the device from manual scanning alone to offer new search features, such as searching by name in the case of a group ticket purchase and searching by order or ticket number.

The search function also lets a ticket taker search via a credit card number, enabling customers to simply swipe their credit card in order to be let in to an event, rather than having to show a ticket.

Each new layer of functionality added to the value we brought to our customer and more importantly to the value they brought to their customers.

Using iPhone OS, Objective C programming language, Cocoa Touch Framework and SOAP web service, the new barcode scanning app exceeded all of our customers’ needs.  It provided the necessary access at mobile venues and went on to provide detailed information to event ticket takers in the form of a compact, easily usable and fun device. To see the scanner in action, check out our partner’s website here!

Let us help you with your next mobile app development project.  You can learn more about our services here.

Last year I wrote several suggestions for product and engineering owners on how to get their teams to be more proactive -  http://blog.softjourn.com/2010/09/

The enthusiasm issue falls along the same line.  First of all when thinking about enthusiasm, think about what you believe constitutes showing enthusiasm.  Often times product owners think that enthusiasm is shown by working a lot of hours. Sure, sometimes that will be necessary, there are deadlines, or issues that come up at the last minute. But really does working overtime, all of the time, show enthusiasm? Or is the person just finding it difficult to get going on what they are supposed to be working on, therefore it is taking them longer?  It really depends on what they are accomplishing.

A better way your developers may be showing enthusiasm is by their suggestions.  They are digging in to your system, learning it inside and out, and then they hit upon some ideas to make improvements, and they want to show you what they mean. So they work on their nights and weekends and come up with examples of how to technically improve the system; to make a system easier to maintain, or to make it more scalable, for example. They work nights and weekends to show what could be done, how long it would take and what would be the benefits. Then when they make their final presentation their enthusiasm is met with, not with enthusiasm in return, but rather a “not developed here” attitude, or “that is not your job” attitude. Of course their ideas may not fit the long term goal of the application, especially if it was not clear to them what the long term goal is. But maybe at least part of it will work, or maybe you can make suggestions as to how they can change it so it will fit the long term goals for the application.  But to outright kill ideas that your people have spent time on (whether they are in-house, or a distributed team, or an outsourced team) will kill long term enthusiasm which will hamper the development of new ideas in the future.  Think about that the next time you think your team is not showing enough enthusiasm. Have they in the past and you weren’t receptive to it. If so, you may have to work harder to get that enthusiasm back.

Thanks Steve!

Developing a barcode scanner for an iPod Touch opened up a whole new world of possibilities for our customer.  Our customer had started out using the Symbol PPT8846 and MC3090 devices to scan tickets at events—devices that came with a built in scanner and ran Windows CE. While these tools got the job done, they were larger and less user-friendly than they could be, as well as expensive.  Then there was also the cool factor of changing to working with an iPod Touch at concerts!

Softjourn developed a scanning solution that takes advantage of today’s mobile devices—and adds a lot of usability features.  The app developed provides convenience and information about each ticket scanned and the ticket holder; information which can be used to provide better service at the event. The iPod Touch was a perfect choice because it is light and has a long battery life – an important characteristic for outdoor events that may not have a lot of outlets to charge a device. It is also convenient to carry around and already had an attachable scanner, lending itself to very fast ticket taking. Plus don’t forget that cool factor!  The Linea-Pro scanner attachment is also available for use with the iPhone 4. See it in action here; (or at your nearest Apple store!).

Let us help you with your next mobile app development project.  You can learn more about our services here.

The first one I wanted to review again was what I had listed as Reason #4 – We have to be working when they (the remote team) are; we have to be up at the same time as they are in order for this to work.

What this means: The concern is that if we are not working the same hours as the remote location, they (the remote team) will not really be doing any work.

What do they mean? The remote team could not possibly be working during their normal business hours and actually get work done without us being in constant contact with them.  We do not have time to do this, we do not see the value in doing this, and we can do all work ourselves faster.

Actions to take: Engage in a conversation with your VP of Engineering revolving around the following topics: Do you often answer questions every hour for your in-house software engineers? Can they work on their own at all? There should be no question that would stop a remote team from getting any work done for an entire day.  The same as your in-house software engineers are able to grasp concepts and move on and work on their own, you want your remote engineers to do the same thing, to take initiative and show independence and innovation in their work. Foster that type of independence and initiative by holding them to deliverables and coming up with solutions, rather than pinging them every hour to see if they are at their desk and working.

I know persons who think they have to be working at the same time as the remote team.  I have managed remote teams for years, and I never do this. Why, because it defeats one of the major benefits of having a team working at opposite hours from you. They can be doing work while you are sleeping and vice versa. I do not mean working on the same code, but this could be testing in one location and writing code in the other, or writing requirements in one location and reviewing them in the other location, etc. If you are working opposite hours, you can always have results waiting for you in the morning. It also does not wear you out. It is not easy to keep an overnight schedule in the US and still keep up with your family and the rest of your life. The same goes for the offshore location, do not force them to overlap their entire work day with yours (unless of course it is a call center and they are supporting customers during the work day in the US). You will lose a major advantage in this way.

I am sometimes amazed that the question of whether or not programmers have cubicles can be such a hot question.  Having worked in the sea of cubicles at many companies, having taken up residence in the hallway at one start-up for a year, having worked in a very very small office with six people, etc., I am not sure which I prefer actually. Headphones help a lot in different situations!   But many people have a preference and prefer cubicle walls, either standing height walls or sitting height walls, or some don’t mind just a desk in an open room. The worse thing is if you believe that someone else can’t be productive if they do not have the exact type desk space that you have.

We have an open concept in our offices now in Ukraine. It allows team members to be easily reachable and share information with each other.  This concept also aids in bringing people together to work on specific teams for a time, and then disbursing to other teams.  It also works well when teams of people work on multiple projects at one time. They can easily collaborate and talk about the different projects.  This model is gaining more acceptance in Silicon Valley companies but is not accepted everywhere.

There is no doubt that cubicle walls lessen distractions and give a sense of privacy, but do they encourage interaction and communication between programmers?  I have had colleagues from Vietnam say that when they visited client sites in Australia, they were surprised at the work environment and surprised at how little interaction there was between the programmers.  Everyone came in to work, went in to their cubicles, put their ear buds in and did their own thing all day.  That may not be the case in every company, but there is something psychological about a cubicle wall as a barrier to communication.  These colleagues from Vietnam were not used to the cubicle world, which has a lot to do with their impression of working in cubicles. Which brings up another reason why it may not make sense to be so concerned if your programmers, working in another country, have cubicle walls or not? Their environment may work for them. Their office layout may also have other benefits that your office may not. For example it may be more common in their country to have more individual offices with groups or teams working together, which can be quite different from the US concept of very large rooms filled with cubes and offices only for individuals.

In the end, is this the most important thing to worry about?  Walls or no walls?  Probably not.  In the end, rather than trying to make sure that their environment looks exactly like yours, the best area to concentrate on is whether or not your team is productive and engaged in what they are doing for you.  You will be able to tell by talking with them and seeing the results. A bad work environment will manifest itself in poor productive or frequent changes in team members. It is time to worry about something else, but not this question.