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BANK OF LITHUANIA

INSTANT PAYMENTS SYSTEM'S UPGRADE

ABOUT CUSTOMER: The Bank of Lithuania is the national central bank of the Republic of Lithuania. As a member of the European System of Central Banks, the Bank of Lithuania cooperates with the European Central Bank and other euro area central banks to make decisions on the euro area monetary policy and its implementation. 
In 2018 the Bank of Lithuania was among the first in Europe to have bravely opened up the instant payments area to the market.


Instant payments are electronic retail payment solutions that process payments in real-time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, where the funds are made available immediately (in less than 20 seconds) for use by the recipient.

 

BUSINESS
NEEDS

MAIN BUSINESS NEEDS AND CHALLENGES:

The ultra-modern payments innovation – interbank instant payments – has been launched in the Bank of Lithuania’s payment system CENTROlink as a scope of SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) and is now operational. Such payments only require a few clicks on a mobile phone or another device, and the funds are credited within a few seconds.


Now that the payment rails are in place, the focus is shifting to the development of new innovative propositions through open API-enabled services and a further acceleration coming from enhanced data and ISO 20022. The Bank’s goal is to make instant payments even faster and simpler and provide its customers with more added value and innovation, herewith by meeting the new challenges:

 

  • Mandatory global migration to ISO 20022 has continued to make significant strides. The impetus is still being driven predominantly by the activity of SWIFT, the global body steering the migration in the correspondent banking space, as well as the Market Infrastructures (MIs) responsible for the world’s major currencies – namely, the euro, the US dollar, and the pound. 
     

  • Increase reachability of instant payments through expanded access to European payment systems. CENTROlink connects to STEP2 and RT1 European payment infrastructures. With this project, Bank of Lithuania will connect to the Eurosystem’s TIPS to increase pan-European reachability of instant payments. As a result, the payment service provider who has a single access point to CENTROlink benefits from all system connections without any major investments.
     

  • Identify the new-generation services (for example, overlay services like Real-time direct debit or Request to Pay through APIs).

ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT

 ADDENDUM was responsible for the project’s stages:

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  • IN INITIATION PHASE – REQUIREMENTS GATHERING: Addendum performed business process analysis, prepared and reviewed functional and non-functional requirements, and created a Pre-Study Report.
     

  • IN PROJECT PLANNING PHASE: Addendum prepared project plan, risks mitigation plan, communication plan, consulted regarding solution architecture, planned budget and resource allocations, and ensured communication with business stakeholders.

​ADDENDUM carried out activities:

  • “As-Is” situation analysis: initial analysis, business process analysis.

  •  “To-Be” business processes re-engineering.

  • Initial analysis, business process analysis.

  • Functional requirements gathering and alignment with business stakeholders.

  • Non-functional requirements gathering and alignment with business and IT stakeholders.

  • Research, analysis, and assessment of current market solutions for instant payments, technologies, off-the-shelf products, best practices in order to create competitive business recommendations for new services scope.

  • Requirements to system scalability and capacity for long term solution;

  • Prediction and system modeling based on KPI’s, system scalability, and capacity requirements.

  • Gap analysis towards future solutions and ISO 20022.

  • Pre-Study report and documentation.

  • Project Plan: describing project scope and preparing schedules, defining timeline, securing resources, allocating budgets, identify possible risks, and informing senior management.

  • The documentation set for future improvements. 

BUSINESS
OUTCOMES

 As the major benefits of the completed Pre-study, the Bank of Lithuania has:

Identified and evaluated current solutions in the market, considering wide variety: off-the-shelf solutions, open-source solutions, licensed software solutions, bespoke applications, and hybrid solutions. 

Budget and resources allocation refinement. 

Identified the new generation services for future instant payments suite: to ensure state-of-the-art services, as well as costs of customers on boarding. 

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