REAL FUNCTIONALITY IN A COMPLETE PACKAGE

Interfile goes to great lengths to protect the confidentiality of third-party information and ensure that only authorised parties are able to submit and process information. All Interfile personnel have been thoroughly screened and strictly adhere to the provisions of various confidentiality and privacy legislation.

All transmissions are encrypted and the data can only be decrypted by authorised personnel. Prior to any information being accepted for processing, it has to meet strict identification standards and specifications. To prevent unauthorised access to any data, all transmissions received and transmitted by the portal are captured in an auditable log file.

Information sent and received is encrypted using a sophisticated and robust encryption routine while commercial banks linked to the EBPP system provide the encryption for the electronic payments processed by them.

The system provides for detailed user and company registration for the service with authentication of details in accordance with defined business rules. This is supported by secure email, fax, SMS and a dedicated call centre.

This process ensures that there are no duplicates, users are validated and ensure a high level of control over the utilisation of the service/portal. In so doing we address the client’s concern of ensuring that both internal staff as well as users are authenticated, have valid rights to process data, and all transactions are logged against the specific user for audit purposes.

Interfile links directly with the banks and enables the company to offer various payment solutions to their clients. The solutions in place have been built, in conjunction with the Banks, over a period of 5 years and provide a foolproof payment gateway and reconciliation service. The core reason behind this is that all payment referencing and instructions are generated, tracked and reconciled within the Portal. The Banks act only on a system instruction utilising our reference and disallowing any manual changes by the client. There is no other payment system that offers masked bank accounts, integrated reconciliation services and third-party-based referencing control.

Different payment options and aspects facilitated by Interfile EBPP are:

Credit Push

 Payment transactions are initiated through the transactional engine and presented to the banking product as bill presentation – payment request. Only once the user has logged into the banking product and authorised the payment request is this transaction regarded as an effective payment. Credit Push transactions are irrevocable. In order for the client to use this payment method, bank accounts have to be opened with these financial institutions. The system is fully integrated with the 4 major banks. All funds that have been paid into one of these bank accounts will be swept at night into a main bank account.

Instructed Debit Pull

 Payment transactions are initiated through the transaction engine and authorised for each transaction. The transaction is only assumed to be successful after user authorisation and a confirmation receipt from the Bank. This payment mechanism utilises the inter-banking facility, ACB that involves the initiation of payment instructions from the originating bank to the client’s bank.

Mobile Payments

 Functionality to allow bill presentment and payment on mobile (cell phone) banking platforms is now a reality.
 Interfile’s mobile applications extend to specific business services allowing customers to be billed, and those bills paid.

Kiosks

 Interfile assists clients to set up either supported or self-assist kiosks for those users without Internet access, at locations identified by the client.

Accuracy of allocation of payments

 Interfile’s transactional engine facilitates accuracy by ensuring real-time or daily reconciliation of all payments made electronically with the specific statement(s). The current EBPP solutions in place have been built in conjunction with the major Banks and provide a secure payment gateway and reconciliation service. The core reason behind this is that all payment referencing and instructions are generated, tracked and reconciled within the Portal back to bill.

Partial Payment

 This function will allow the customers the opportunity to allocate their payment to the different services and or make a partial payment on an account.

The facility to combine multiple accounts into a single payment

 A payment that has been made from one bank account can be allocated to several accounts within the billing system.

Users are able to complete and submit electronic forms via the Internet. Forms are presented in a pre-populated format, which ensures that not only is the referencing information correct but also assists the user for faster completion. Calculations on the forms, where required, are done electronically by the system thereby removing errors associated with manual calculations.

You are thus able to present either free format or customised forms through the Portal to ensure standardisation. Users, both internal and external to the client, are able to either complete forms and applications online, download from the portal to complete offline and then submit, or receive an editable document via secure email for completion and submission. This ensures that users are free to choose their preferred manner of interaction.

All forms, invoices and statements are designed and presented in a recognisable-to-the-customer format so that interaction with the client is not foreign to the customer utilising the site.

Addressing the available bandwidth and electricity supply challenges faced by South Africa, Interfile designed a service whereby the user can connect to the internet, download the needed forms, save it to disk and complete it offline at a later stage. This completed form can then be submitted and synchronised to the EBPP system when the user connects to the internet again.

An example of this “Air Product” service in use is the SARS e@syfile suite of products.

This service, fully integrated with the system, allows for users to make use of both Workflow and Notification tools through either a simple workflow wizard or tick box. Notifications may be sent to any email address, cell phone number or facsimile number. Recommended notifications include notifying users of successful activation for service, confirmation of document completion or submission, confirmation or request to make payment and notification of certificate availability. This service vastly improves the service levels to users and offers a way to substantially improve the negative perceptions that many people have of government offerings.

The system maintains a copy of all the information, applications, forms and payments with a minimum of 12 months history immediately available per user. For information older than 12 months, a request can be sent to Interfile who will retrieve this from the archives. Based on business requirements identified during the business analysis phase, this can be customised to the client’s specifications.

In order to assist the client and its users, history of all payments, form submissions, invoices, and communications through the Portal is maintained. Every single transaction is auditable and traceable to ensure integrity and manage associated risk.

A secure facility to send and receive email is available through the Interfile Portal. Users are able to receive communications via email in a secure format.

Interfile maintains a full administration system catering for queries, user support and control, activations and de-activations, password resets, etc. The system is web-based and therefore, dependent on customer requirements, An extension of this system or a separate administration system can easily be catered for.

Interfile provides both monthly and weekly reports on all aspects of the service. The reports can be customised to suit the needs of the client. The system also provides detailed reports on transactions, customer utilisation, and detailed management statistics.