Object oriented model for Bank Account Number Portability Dr. Sonali Agarwal Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, India. sonali@iiita.ac.in Ankur Agarwal Banking Professional, Allahabad, India. alld.ankur@gmail.com Abstract In this present era, the growth of financial transactions are increasing tremendously due to availability of new products for customers. In banking Systems the account number is considered as a distinctive identification of transaction processing. In India there are more than 85,000 branches of banks, offering wide selections of banking services to the customers. It is also very obvious that customers are increasingly switching their banks for various reasons. The paper proposes a universal model for Bank Account Number Portability which may reduce the efforts of banking system and provides a seamless integration of services in more secure environment. It consists a three tier architecture with layered process flow for the management of Universal Bank Account Number. An object oriented model has also been proposed for Bank Account Number Portability (BANP) Using C++ and Visual Paradigm of UML. II. PROPOSED MODEL AND MODERN REQUIREMENTS The previous methodologies for universal banking account numbers are either not unique in nature or very complicated in numbering format. The numbering sequence of universal bank account number is mainly based on the initial alphabet of either the location of branch or the name of customer owing the account. But this technique still has some limitation in both case of sharing among branches and unique identification. The previous techniques do not guarantee about occurrence of conflict during the portability of a bank account between two banks. The Bank Account Number Portability flow through intermediate authorizing bodies is an authentication based process as shown in the figure 1 below: Keywords- Universal Bank Account Number, Object Oriented Model, Bank Account Number Portability (BANP), Unified Modeling Language (UML). I. INTRODUCTION After introduction of mobile number portability, there is an urgent demand to introduce common bank account numbers for all the banks to facilitate interoperability among banking system. It is clearly established that an universal model for Bank Account Number Portability may reduce the efforts of banking system and provides a seamless integration of services in more secure environment. Although account number portability is accepted as an revolutionary idea to increase customer satisfaction, transparency and neutralize the competitive environment of current banking system, it has several challenges. Currently there are approximately 600 millions bank accounts exist with various banking organizations [1]. Every Bank organization has its own account number format which is based on certain bank and branch related information. Generating an Universal bank account number needs an independent format so that it will commonly accepts by all banking systems. There ia an urgent need to adopt common KYC and risk profiling rules so that the customer credentials may be evaluated under common standard acceptable by all banks. Figure 1: Sequence Diagram for showing the process of account portability When a client closes an existing bank account and wants to open a new account in another bank, the following essential parameters are needed to consider for the operation: The financial cost of closing an account is an overburden. Most of the customers are either not aware about the real cost of their present bank account or not in a position to compare costs correctly while changing the bank. 15 7 1
The complex process of replacing, changing or updating out-bound and in-bound payment mandates issued to Banks, Life Insurances, Mutual Funds, Financial Institutions, Governmental Departments etc. The bank account number must be defined through the Universal Distinctive Bank Account Numbering Scheme [1] which helps to magnify the mobility of the account portability scenario. The Universal Bank Account Number (UBAN) must be registered at a central repository and shared among all bank organization. The interchanging authentication procedure of the universal banking account number must be transferred only through the authorizing body. The Universal banking account number must be supported by the UID authority not only for avoiding conflicts with the other account number but also it provides a unique authentication of the client. III. THE PROPOSED ARCHITECTURE OF THE UID BASED ACCOUNT PORTABILITY A three tier layered architecture is shown in figure 2 for UID based account portability. A central repository, which may be a national level Data Warehouse, is required to be maintained. This will store the core data elements which is useful for all banking organization. It should be also accessible by any bank organization for getting the basic information about customers including their unique identification number such as PAN or AADHAR etc [2]. Figure 2: Three Tier Layered Architecture of Bank Account Number Portability system Bank Specific Data Warehouses should be maintained. This may be confined to individual banks with their financial information. All personal details including KYC and risk profiling of the customers may be stored at this level and it may be kept confidential for any kind of unauthorized access. All operational data related to day to day customer transaction may be kept at branch level and need not to transfer to its upper level every time in a day to avoid overload. It may be transferred at the end of the day when all transaction are verified and performs their commit operations at branch to update the master database of the bank. IV. PROPOSED ACCOUNT NUMBER FORMAT In the proposed model of account number portability process the technique to identify a customer bank account is based on a sixteen digit representation [3]. The sixteen characters of the bank account number are mainly divided into 4 parts as follows: The first part of the account number containing 5 digits, which is derived from the first five letters of the name of the customer by using the following conversion techniques. All the upper case alphabets will be replaced with numbers as follows, A-K-U-0 B-L-V-1 C-M-W-2 D-N-X-3 E-O-Y-4 F-P-Z-5 G-Q-6 H-R-7 I-S-8 J-T-9 The second part of the account number containing a 3 digit structure containing the account type. For example 001 Saving account 002 Current account 003 Overdraft account 004 Education Loan account 005 Housing Loan account 006 Term Deposit account.. etc. The third part of the account number contains 7 digits which represent the counter for the customer number identification. And the last digit of the account number contains a checksum generated randomly to avoid any duplicate account number generation. 16 7 1
V. OBJECT ORIENTED REPRESENTATION OF THE PROPOSED MODEL The CRC (Class Responsibility Collaboration) diagram has been prepared for a Banking System with Account Number Portability. Visual Paradigm for UML Quick Start is a tool used to design the Object Oriented Model. Visual Paradigm for UML, VP-UML, is a UML CASE supporting Tool for Business Process Modeling from the Object Management Group [4]. VP-UML supports the key industrial standards such as XMI, Unified Modeling Language (UML), etc. It offers a complete toolset of software development teams which is needed for test planning, class modeling, software planning, requirements capturing, data modeling, and etc. In addition of modeling support, it provides the report generation and code engineering capabilities. It can reverse the engineer diagrams from code, known as reverse engineering and provides the round-trip engineering for various programming languages [5] [6] [7]. The core classes for the model are as follows: Bank_ Account_ Number_ Generator Class is shown in figure 3. This generates Universal Bank Account Number as discussed. A class National_Banking_Authority is designed to map the universal bank account number with unique identification of a customer. Figure 5: CRC for National_Banking_Authority A class Account as shown in figure 6 is designed to show the account type. It may have distinct account number for different types of account. Figure 3: CRC Card for Universal Bank Account Number Generation Customer Class is shown in figure 4. This holds all basic information about customer. Figure 6: CRC card for Account The Branch specific operational data is stored with the help of transaction Class which is shown in figure 7. Figure 4: CRCCard for Customer Figure 7 : CRC card for Tranaction 17 7 1
Another classes such as bank, branch, product type are also designed for subsequent operations and shown in figure 8, 9, 10. a. Customer bank account + unique ID is required for verification b. Send to central repository for customer s unique ID verification c. If verified that bank name and code d. Access send to old bank and details verified e. If verification successful the required database is moved from old bank account to new bank account f. Send confirmation to both 3. If no account exist a. Comply KYC, Risk Profiling and generate new account number. b. Store KYC, Risk profiling and Account number to central repository and update bank master details. Figure 8: CRC card for Product Type The banking process flow is explained with the help of snap shots of core functions such as Account_open_process, Central_Repository, New_Bank and Old_bank. Figure 9: CRC card for Branch VI. Figure 10: CRC card for Bank PSEUDO CODE FOR MODEL DEVELOPMENT Following are the necessary steps for working with universal bank account number system along with its interoperability features: 1. Request to open an account 2. If the account exist in any other bank 18 7 1
when the cost of termination of the relationship with the old bank is very high. Due to the above causes, even after entering into a new interaction, clients hold on to their old banking accounts. The hassle of switching of account number of the client from one bank to another is a complex process. Keeping multiple accounts is one of the major root causes of having bad loan practices and money laundering. This clearly indicates the need of Account number portability. Banking experts across the world are having their view that account mobility will enhance the competition in the area of retail banking. Bank account number portability method will encourage the banking organizations to be more focused on customer services and satisfaction as well as more transparency in pricing. The client should be free to choose a bank for its financial service. VII. CONCLUSION Rather than terminating their existing account, some clients would like to start a new account at another bank especially REFERENCES [1] Official website of Reserve Bank of India, www.rbi.org.in/ [2] Official website of AADHAAR http://uidai.gov.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14 5&Itemid=2 [3] M V N K Prasad, S Ganesh Kumar, Universal Distinctive Bank Account Numbering Scheme, IDRBT Working Paper No. 10. [4] Official Website of Visual Paradigm www.visual-paradigm.com/ [5] Manish Jain, Kumar Kudidhi, Bank Account Number Portability A Perspective, Finacle, Infosys Limited, 2010. [6] Bank Accounts over Europe:tradition & tools & trends Cycle of 10 European Workshops Mutual Learning on Financial Inclusion Opening European Workshop with Certificate 2008 [7] The Dutch Interbank Switching Support Service, http://www.simonl.org/docs/thedutch.pdf retrived on march 2012. 19 7 1