Mosaic Software’s Asian Tigers on the move

This month, Mosaic Software’s youngest division celebrates its fourth year of operations in the Asia-Pacific region. In early 2001, Francois van Schoor, then the General Manager of the Africa division, relocated with three staff members to Melbourne, Australia, to establish Mosaic Software’s Asia-Pacific division. With a lot of hard work and tens of thousands of air miles behind them, Francois and his team now boast 13 high-profile clients in eight countries in the South-East Asian region.

As part of this division’s expansion, a Singapore representative office was established in late 2003 headed by Timothy Cha, Regional Director for Business Development. In early 2004, he was joined by Leonardo Fiorini (a former Postilion trainer) as a pre-sales engineer. The division’s clients are diverse and include companies such as EFTEX and Data Action in Australia; New Zealand Association of Credit Unions in New Zealand; eSSecom in India; DNL ALTO, GE Finance, and Pt. ISO in Indonesia; GE Capital and GE Money Bank in Thailand; and the two newest clients, Robinson’s Saving Bank (Philippines) and Bank of South Pacific (Papua New Guinea). Francois says, “Our clients are our best marketing tool – they have great things to say about us and are always willing to meet with potential clients to discuss Postilion’s many valuable and diverse uses.

As an example, EFTEX, one of Mosaic’s valued customers in the region, also acted as a Postilion reseller at the Bank of South Pacific. The success of this deal and the subsequent installation of Postilion are testament to the excellent relationship between client and vendor.”

David Glen, Managing Director of EFTEX, concurs: “We are pleased that we chose Postilion and would have no hesitation in making the same decision again. Postilion is a highly flexible software platform and is well backed up by Mosaic Software’s well-trained software support team. We find the Asia-Pacific team to be responsive and knowledgeable, not only about questions relating to their own software, but also (due to their growing global presence) on emerging trends in other parts of the world. Mosaic has become more than just a software provider; they have become a valued business partner.”

“I cannot stress enough the contribution of Mosaic’s partners in the various countries,” Francois continues. “The persistence and dedication of Channel Solutions ensured that Mosaic could enter the Philippine market with the successful installation of Postilion at Robinson’s Savings Bank, our first client in that country.”

Wally Sandoval, Managing Partner at Channel Solutions Inc., says, “Mosaic Software has exhibited complete dedication in the Robinson's Bank Postilion project. The short project timeframe was treated as a positive challenge and Mosaic walked the extra mile to complete the project in the shortest possible time. Mosaic staff and the technical team take customer satisfaction very seriously.”

New challenges on the horizon…

The recent acquisition of Mosaic Software by S1 Corporation brings new and exiting challenges for the Asia-Pacific division. From July this year, Francois van Schoor will, in addition to his existing role as General Manager for Mosaic’s Asia-Pacific division, take over the leadership role of S1’s operations in South-East Asia.

Francois’s promotion necessitates that he relocate to Singapore, taking Marc Kemsley with him. Australian and New Zealand-based clients are assured of uninterrupted support as Pieter van Wyngaard (Technical Manager – Asia-Pacific) together with Levent Barlas and Scott Herd will continue offering their high standard of services out of the Melbourne office.

“Francois and his team have done a great job in establishing Mosaic’s presence in Asia-Pacific. I am extremely happy and proud that he has received this promotion. I believe that the new, joint Singapore operation will provide a solid springboard for S1 and Mosaic Software in this region,” says Johann Dreyer, Mosaic Software CEO. Francois is honored and excited about his new role in Asia-Pacific: “It is going to be an interesting and challenging experience, but I believe that with the new combined team we will make the company proud.”

First Bank, an S1 and Mosaic Software customer

The fit between S1 and Mosaic Software has become even more evident with joint customer FirstBank of Lexington, Tennessee, in the United States. FirstBank currently licenses S1 Personal Banking, S1 Business Banking, S1 Voice Banking, and Mosaic Software’s Postilion ATM and POS solutions.

By deploying all of these best-of-breed solutions, the bank is realizing the tremendous benefits in building revenue opportunities, increasing customer loyalty, and reducing operating costs. In fact, Scott Smith, Vice President of Electronic Banking for FirstBank, recently highlighted these benefits at the S1 Executive Advisory Council held in Austin, Texas. This council comprises approximately 15 financial institutions that meet twice a year with S1 executives to discuss industry issues, provide company updates, and network with each other.

During the meeting, Scott Smith shared some powerful results that his institution has achieved with its most recent implementation of Postilion:

• With the previous solution, the bank paid $0.25 for each PIN-based POS transaction and with Postilion the bank now receives $0.18 per PIN-based POS transaction. This has had a tremendous impact on savings and revenue as the bank processes approximately 60,000 of these transactions a month, and the number is increasing.

• With the former solution, the bank also paid $0.08 for each on-us ATM transaction and now the bank pays nothing because the on-us transactions are intercepted by Postilion and processed at the bank as opposed to being sent to the network.

• With the former solution, the bank’s 200,000+ transaction volume was earning the bank $30,000 per month, but costing $35,000 – $40,000 to operate. With Postilion, the bank has now been able to turn this loss into a profit, projecting $218,000 in the first year of operation and exceeding $1.7 million in four years.

• In the first three months of running Postilion, the bank realized a $110,000 savings by eliminating workload and transaction fees generated by their previous solution.

“Part of my role in joining FirstBank was to look at bringing our ATM solutions in-house,” said Scott Smith. “In looking at the solutions that were available when we made our decision, nothing compared to Postilion. In just a matter of months, it is obvious that our due diligence is paying off with a real return on our investment. We are also pleased that our ATM and POS solutions are now part of the S1 family as this will help further our goals with channel integration.”

Cards Middle East

On 16 and 17 May, Mosaic Software exhibited at Cards Middle East with Postilion reseller STS, a regional provider of end-to-end payment and financial solutions. Cards Middle East is the premier annual conference and exhibition in the Middle East for the cards industry, drawing attendees from North Africa and as far as the Indian subcontinent. In preparation for EMV migration in the region in January 2006, the Postilion/STS booth showcased how financial institutions can best leverage EMV for competitive advantage. Postilion for OneSmart Pre-Authorized was demonstrated alongside secure electronic payment solutions offered by STS.

17th Annual Card Forum & Expo

Mosaic Software and S1 recently received some very good exposure to over 700 senior executives from the card issuing, financial institution, retail, and processor industries at the 17th Annual Card Forum & Expo held in Orlando, Florida, from 4 to 6 May. Chris Klein joined several high profile members of Discover, MasterCard, and Visa as a member of a panel discussion on how the payment industry fulfills the increasing demands of a consumer population wanting more innovative payment products and services

Career day

On 13 May, Mosaic-US Customer Support Engineer Ed Arnold participated with 25 other parents in Career Day at Everglades Elementary School in Weston, Florida. Here he took four fourth-grade classes through an interactive demonstration on how ATMs work. With children playing the parts of cardholders, terminals, messages, and banks, Ed walked them through the rudiments of withdrawals and deposits, message flows, message validation, and security. The children used Visa test cards and "Diebold bucks", while their teachers were cast in the role of Transaction Manager. "I'll know I was effective," said Ed, "when I hear a story about a parent whose transaction could not be completed and their child says ‘Try again, Mommy, the message must have failed.’”