VCBBank automates payment process with Alchemy

VCBBank automates payment process with Alchemy

July 2019, Surinam – VCBBank is partnering with IBIS Management to implement the Alchemy payment processing platform, giving clients a significantly improved banking experience with better, faster and more accurate service. With an automated back-office, VCBBank will be able to provide more accessibility to information on payments and transfer requests. This decision also opens up the possibility for the use of additional online channels enabling a more modern approach that is expected in today’s world.

The Surinam financial sector has realized the importance of being more efficient, compliant and of reducing operations risks to better manage relationships with correspondent banks.  “Technological innovation is an important factor that will further influence the financial sector in the coming years. FinTech (technology-drive innovation in financial services) is an unavoidable reality that will radically change the payment habits of consumers and the way financial world does business,” according to the governor of the Central Bank of Surinam.

The implementation of Alchemy PPS, will place VCBBank among the innovation leaders of the Financial sector’s with significant advantage to increase market share over the competition. Next to this Alchemy’s reputation for compliance and trust among correspondent banks, will help VCBBank maintain these healthy relationships, ensuring the ability to continue sending and receiving US Dollars. 

Recent developments with the Surinam National Payment System (SNEPS) means that the Surinam market is ripe for innovation. By the end of this month (July), banks will be able to automatically clear US Dollars. With this comes additional pressure on automation and compliance along with integration with the Network. Through the use of Alchemy, VCBBank will be well-prepared to move forward. 

The Central Bank of Surinam introduced SNEPS a year ago, which brings a switch from a semi-automatic, to a fully automatic and hyper modern electronic payment system. Important advantages of this will be time savings, more certainty and fewer risks in interbank transactions. Processing transactions, such as transfers, will take place almost simultaneously and will also be immediately visible, making it possible to better manage liquidity planning. Alchemy directly responds to this development’s requirement for automation of internal banking systems.

About Alchemy

The Alchemy Connect platform, which consists of a Payment Processing Suite, Internet Banking, Mobile Banking App and other features has been developed by banking experts at IBIS Management and implemented at various financial institutions in the Caribbean to address existing global banking automation and compliance needs in the payment arena. The solution provides real-time responses to customers, access to all information on customers’ payments, and a real-time, preventative and proactive sanction lists filter with a complete end-to-end audit trail for all transactions. Banks that have implemented Alchemy have experienced on average over 600% gain in efficiency during the first months of operation, with additional gains in the following months as an increased number of payments are processed straight through.

Next to automating the day-to-day activities, Alchemy also helps banks improve and build strong relationships with US correspondent banks, minimizing the chance of being cast into the de-risking basket. Real-time Preventative Sanction Lists Screening on payments and customer level is a key requirement from US Correspondent banks to comply with to ensure all incoming and outgoing payments are duly checked prior to execution. This feature is built into the Alchemy platform.