C A S E S T U D Y

Independent Testing
Saves the Day

How a European Bank avoided huge business risks

in its VisionPLUS® rollout by engaging a
financial domain focused testing partner ?

3 years in a row! Thinksoft: Winner of Deloitte Tech Fast

500 AsiaPac - 2006 , 2007 and 2008!
 C A S E S T U D Y

Background
A leading global financial service provider in Europe was in the process of moving their portfolio of customer accounts and retailer
information from two existing receivables systems to VisionPLUS®, a leading account receivable processing system. The migration of
millions of existing accounts from legacy systems to the new system meant that the new system had to be First time Right to avoid
huge business costs of a defective rollout.

With its highly complex architecture, involving several interfaces to multi-vendor and multi-platform systems, it was a gargantuan task
to undertake a testing program which could fully cover all the business and technical complexities.

The lack of skilled test resources and the expertise needed for meticulous test plans made it essential for the company to look for a
specialist testing partner.

Why Thinksoft ?
The company zeroed on Thinksoft Global Services (TGS) after
evaluating several software testing companies, and because of
“We were highly satisfied with the overall roll out
TGS’s core competency in financial software testing, and its global of the project. Working with Team TGS was
delivery model. Thinksoft was selected on the basis of its rewarding for the quality of deliverables and value
VisionPLUS® competence, domain specific test methodologies and
user acceptance testing experience.
addition”.
Quality leader
TGS was given the responsibility of carrying out user acceptance, – Global 500 Bank in Europe
functional testing and User Training.

Challenges
To begin with, the migration to a new accounts receivables system involving different vendors with more than 30 interfaces was in
itself a huge challenge. The development project plan had factored for staggered delivery & phased integration of the various
functionalities.

Many software builds were added during system testing, which resulted in revising test plans. In fact, changes to requirements of one
of the interfaces resulted in five new versions of requirement documents, even after the test scenarios were delivered to the client
for review.

Due to delayed deliveries by various vendors, System Integration Testing (SIT) became an additional responsibility and this testing
had to be carried out in tandem with test planning for User Acceptance Testing (UAT).

Solution
Considering the sheer complexity of the challenges lying ahead and the tight deadlines the project demanded, TGS rapidly ramped
up it’s resources for the same. Nearly 37 members were part of this project, which had both onsite and offshore teams, working
closely in liaison with 6 vendors and 12 interface points. Thinksoft’s offshore test center was connected to the company’s test
environment in Europe through secure VPN connectivity.

The project was kicked off after brainstorming with all the stakeholders, to devise a four-pronged strategy. It involved:
• Test planning (Test strategy, Master test plans, Detailed test plans, Test timeline).
• Writing UAT scripts based on documented Business Process maps & ensuring functional coverage.
• Conducting and directing System Testing (ST), Integrated Testing (IT) and UAT.
• Preparation of detailed test results and statistics to help business make informed decisions regarding software rollout.
 C A S E S T U D Y

Testing had to cover the entire end -to-end card life cycle The transactions covered were :
functionalities such as: › Closed-end loans
› Origination › Retail purchases
› Card Production › Purchase returns
› Letters › Partial returns & reversals
› Funds Disbursement › Cash advances
› Authorization › Cash advance cancellations
› Transaction Processing › Manual transactions (Dispute chargebacks & Fee reversals)
› Fees › Credit and debit adjustments
› Insurance
› Insurance Reporting Over 60 custom reports were also tested as part of this
› Statements engagement. TGS ensured that each test phase of ST, IT and UAT
› Payment Processing had separate teams to oversee the execution. During UAT, TGS
› Direct Debit also coordinated the test execution by Business Users. Defect
› Customer Service management and co-ordination with the development team
› Early Collections / Fraud & Charge-off throughout the project for tracking defects to closure, helped in
› Pay-off Quote rigorous issue management.
› Late Collections
› Risk Strategy Manager However, the project was not without its share of challenges.
› Block Code Matrix Some of them were:
› General Ledger • The 30 odd interface files and their functionality were not
› Retailer Setup and Merchant Settlement tested in SIT and were tested for the first time during UAT.
› Tax Reporting • Delays in batch runs by development vendors affected test
› Web Extract schedules.
• Data migration problems.
• Lack of Test Terminals to submit online authorization
Product coverage for UAT included: testing.
• Master Card
• Private Label Credit Cards (PLCC) On customer request, 230 critical functionalities were tested
• Non-Card based Revolving Credits with converted accounts. The business users executed nearly
• Non-Card based close-end loans 20% of the scenarios in UAT, which were selected by TGS.
• Insurance - PPI, PPI + Job Transfer, PPI-Life (extended
PPI), Private Health Care (PHC), Committed Payment [ PPI As part of the project, Thinksoft supported interfaces testing for
– Payment Protection Insurance ] Mercury -- the origination system, Indus and Nova – the
collection systems. TGS conducted VisionPLUS® training for
business users to help them understand features and
operations of the new system. This enabled quicker adoption of
the new software by the business.

CLC

- COLLECTIONS CALL CENTER

OPERATIONS STAFF - COLLECTION ADMIN STAFF
MARKETING STAFF PAYMENT TEAM

MERCURY
VisionPLUS ®
INDUS
NOVA

FINANCE
OPERATIONS STAFF
OPERATIONS TEAM RISK STAFF STAFF
 C A S E S T U D Y

Outcome of Thinksoft’s testing

› Over 650 business critical functionalities were identified and special focus was given to tracking issues related to these
functionalities.
› Over 78% of the issues unearthed were Business Critical (1085 out of total 1388 issues). 286 of these were showstoppers. All
of these were systematically tracked and closed.

Some of the issues identified, tracked and closed were:

• OTB (Open to Buy ) not updated for transactions when VisionPLUS® connectivity is down.
• Direct Debit Function did not work successfully.
• Accounting entries (Credits/Debits) incorrect.
• No interest was calculated when payment was received and reversed within grace days.
• Incorrect interest calculation when payment is received within grace days but reversed in next billing cycle.
• One-to-many relationship between relationship number and account number was not allowed.

› 230 critical functionalities were tested with converted accounts.

› Functionality wise issues – reported and tracked to closure.
› 220 requirement gaps were identified and tracked to closure.

10%
9%

8%
8%

6% 6% Functionality wise issues

6% – reported and tracked to closure
5% 5%

4% 4%
3%
3% 3% 3%
3% 3%
2% 2%
1% 1%
1% 1%
1% 1%
1% 1% 1%
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Benefits to the company

• Comprehensive Functional Test coverage across 26 Modules with 499 Scenarios and 7480 test cases.
• Successfully completed the UAT within the timeline and budget.
• Successfully managed challenges of integration testing and user acceptance testing simultaneously while ensuring seamless
implementation.
• All the business critical incidents were tracked and closed using rigorous defect management processes.
• Enabled rollout of a ‘business ready software’, avoiding potential business costs arising out of defects.

NB: The case study referred above, developed by Thinksoft research team, is based
on real life customer experience. All names have been changed in the interests of
protecting confidentiality.

Financial Software Testing Specialist

www.thinksoftglobal.com
Disclaimer: All names, logos are used for identification purposes only and are trademarks or registered info@thinksoftglobal.com
trademarks of their respective companies. Trademarks of other third parties used in this document are
the property of their respective owners.nly. No explicit/implicit warranties are made by Thinksoft on
such performance.

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