Buy now pay later is a service that allows you to buy products online in installments without paying anything at the time of purchase. The product will be delivered instantly, and you would only have to pay the agreed installment in 14 or 30 days.

With Buy now pay later, you could buy what you want, when you want without having to save or borrow money in advance. It is a service that could help consumers struggling with their finances and is often only able to buy things at the last minute. The service also allows you to buy expensive products without paying anything at the time of purchase.

Arttha is an award winning, unified fintech platform. It is currently being used by more than 100+ Financial Institutions. Processes more than 780 transactions per second. enables banks and financial institutions to drive revenue with powerful value propositions, including Digital Bank in a Box, Agent Banking, Merchant Management, Loan Lifecycle Management, and Digital Wallet and Payments solutions.

The word “arttha” comes from Sanskrit. It means “continuity between sensory organs and intellect”. We thought this word was very appropriate for our company as it describes the nature of everything, we do in Banking to make it fully integrated and seamless.

The name ‘Arttha’ itself stands for continuity between sensory organs and intellect. This is precisely what we aim to do – we want to integrate Banking with technology so seamlessly that people forget there was a point when there weren’t any such solutions around. We have been working in the Financial Services Industry for a long time, and we understand that a lot of paperwork is involved, making it tedious at times to get your work done.

At Arttha our endeavour is to foster financial inclusion and turn traditional financial services delivery into a fairly simple process with technology becoming an integral part of one’s life.

Arttha Digital banking solution empowers banks to create highly differentiated virtual banking experiences and seamlessly respond to the ever-evolving digital needs of their consumers. Strengthen your digital relationship with customers by building tightly integrated digital touchpoints and drive deeper consumer engagements. Upgrade your bank to effectively serve, continuously delight and digitally engage the smart consumer of today with the trusted, flexible, and future-proof digital banking solution by Arttha. Arttha’s configurable platform seamlessly integrates with the existing legacy systems and allows banks to seamlessly launch innovative products and services to cater to the changing customer needs. The Bank-in-a-Box solution prepares banks for increased profitability besides providing their customers an experience beyond the traditional branch banking. It also adds value to the entire ecosystem with open API Banking that allows banks to collaborate with the fintech players and cultivate an interoperable ecosystem of innovation around customer data.

The term ‘Digital Analytics’ has become a household name over the past few years. Every day we read about companies hiring Digital Analytics professionals and investment made on tools and expertise to help them understand their customers better. There is more that goes into the decision-making process of any Financial Institution (FI) than simply knowing where and how much of their business is coming from.

Digital Analytics is more than just a set of tools and processes that help understand the usage pattern on web or mobile. It requires expertise in interpreting these patterns and then using them to influence FI’s strategy for making money. Aligning Digital Analytics with a bank’s commercial strategies involves two things:

(a) Focusing on the right business metrics and

(b) Analysing them to arrive at relevant insights.

The key difference between Digital Analytics and Digital Banking Analytics is that, well, it’s not just about analysing data anymore. It now includes a set of processes that help monitor customer satisfaction levels. It also includes real time customer feedback. The term Banking Analytics will feel more familiar to the existing workforce in most FIs, who are used to thinking of Financial Analytics as a set of tools and processes that help understand customer behaviour vis-a-vis various products within an FI.

Data sources for Digital Analytics include, but are not restricted to, the following.

Data sources for Digital Banking Analytics will include data from all of the above along with data from customer touch points like branch network, call centres, etc. across various channels (online, mobile).

The goal of both Digital Analytics and Digital Banking Analytics is to improve the end user experience by understanding their needs better and then working with the bank to improve their experience. This is done by analysing transaction data, social media and other available public/semi-public data and putting together a 360-degree view of the customer (a model which we will refer to as Customer360). The more accurate this model, the better it will be for FIs trying to understand their customers better.

Here are some of the daily challenges an FI faces in trying to understand customer behaviour, some of them may sound familiar:

The way forward is to adopt a 360-degree view of the customer (Customer360) which helps FIs look at their customer through various lenses like demographic profile, product usage pattern, spending habits, etc. and then use this information to influence strategy decisions. This implies a paradigm shift from focussing on short term metrics or KPIs to realising the importance of understanding customer behaviour as part of a longer-term perspective so as to allow FIs the opportunity to create products which will generate more revenue in the long run.

In order for this shift to happen, FIs first need to understand the kind of data they have access to through their existing systems. They can then begin on an initial set of experiments which will help them move towards the Customer360 modelling stage.

Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) is a way for you to send and receive money electronically. You can set up EFT by having your employer, the government or another financial institution like a bank, deduct funds from your chequing account and transfer them directly to another person’s account by electronic means. The funds will be transferred to your account electronically. This is known as direct deposit, which allows you to receive your income faster.

When someone sets up an EFT for their payroll or retirement plan, they can choose to have the funds paid out on a regular schedule (e.g., every week or every month). An EFT can also be set up with no pre-set schedule (e.g., when certain payables are paid).

You can use your debit card for purchases, withdraw cash at an ABM (Automatic Banking Machine) or purchase money orders with funds that have been directly deposited to your account by EFT. You can also transfer funds electronically from one account to another using the bank’s bill payment service.

Electronic funds transfer (EFT) is an umbrella term for any type of money movement between people using the Internet, banks, automated teller machines (ATMs), point-of-sale terminals or telephone. This includes check conversion, direct deposit, debit cards and online banking transactions.

Here are some of the most common types of EFT:

1) Direct deposit (EFT): You can set up to have your employer or another type of organization that owes you money, such as a pension plan, send those funds directly into your account. This is often referred to as direct deposit because the money is deposited electronically directly into your account.

2) Debit cards: A debit card is a plastic card that allows you to use funds from your bank account to make purchases or withdraw money from an ATM as if it was a gift or cash card. You put money into your account by depositing funds at the bank and can then access those funds by using the debit card. The funds are automatically deducted from your account at the time of the transaction.

3) Electronic bill payment: You can have your bills paid directly from your bank account by authorizing a company, organization or government department to make electronic withdrawals from your account on a regular basis. This is called electronic bill payment. For example, you can pay all or some of your monthly bills every month by having the organizations that owe you money send them directly into your account. You can also pay bills through an online or mobile bill payment service, offered by most banks and other financial institutions.

You can use your debit card for a number of things: to shop online, pay bills and make withdrawals from an ATM. Some financial institutions may allow you to set up direct deposits, preauthorized credits and bill payments.

You can also use your debit card to withdraw cash and make purchases at any retail location that has a point-of-sale (POS) terminal where you can swipe your card and tap your PIN, instead of signing a receipt for the purchase. You can also shop online by first transferring funds from your chequing account into a special savings account.

EMV stands for the Europay MasterCard Visa standard. EMV is based on chip technology and was originally designed to decrease credit card fraud at point-of-sale terminals around the world. The standard is managed by EMVco, a company owned jointly by American Express, JCB, Mastercard, UnionPay and Visa Inc.

Germany’s federalism has led to a patchwork of merchant acceptance. In 2005, the Electronic Cash Association (iDEA) was founded by nine large retailers, including Aldi Nord and Metro Group, to promote chip-based payment methods. As a result, iDEA member stores were early adopters of EMV technology for their PIN-based debit cards, while most merchant locations in Germany still only accept chip-less magnetic stripe cards.

An Instant Payment Notification or IPN is a notification sent from an online store to the seller’s back-end system letting them know that a purchase was made, and credit card payment has been accepted. This can be done through HTTP POST requests, but there is no standard format for the request and largely varies between shopping carts and financial institutions.

In other words, IPN’s are a way to send information from the store owner to the store administrator about an order placed. This message should contain the data regarding this purchase and can be sent automatically. In some cases, it may be necessary for a storeowner to inform its administrator when a client has made a payment or registered on your website. IPN is a method of sending information from the merchant to the administrator.

Let’s take a look at a common example:

A customer has placed an order on an online store and made payment through Paypal. The shopping cart script will send the details needed to the transaction processor through an HTTP POST request which looks similar to this:

POST /cgi-bin/webscr HTTP/1.1

Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Content-Length: length

notification_type=payment_transaction&txn_id=1234&item_name=Some Product Name&item_number=123&item_price=19.95&quantity=1&payer_email=example@gmail.com&ipn_message_id=1234

This is not a standard format however, so to process this request you will need to have the IPN processor configured with your merchant account. Once you have this working properly, you will also be able to take advantage of the Instant Payment Notification processor.

When companies deal with customers, they work on Order to generate Revenue. To ensure that revenue flows smoothly throughout the company’s supply chain, these interactions need to be captured and classified as an order. An order is the request by a customer to buy goods or services.

This classification provides business owners with valuable insight regarding the status of the company’s business relationships. The classification is also helpful for many reasons such as:

Tracking and recognizing new customers and customer opportunities and identifying any gaps in meeting customer demands or needs.

Identifying barriers to effective delivery and operational excellence.

Locating areas for process improvements; and

Enhancing organizational alignment.

Companies that are into manufacturing typically have different types of orders e.g., Sales order, Purchase Order, Work Order etc. While sales order is created based on customer demand, purchase order is created for purchasing product from suppliers and work orders are created to manage the production process within a company. Each type of sales order has sub-types which are determined based on the type of product being purchased. For example, if a company is manufacturing laptops, then it needs to come up with laptop sales order types for its customers i.e., Cash sale, credit sale etc.

An order-to-cash (also referred to as OTC) model is a business process that positively impacts the following processes:

In sales, OTC models help develop new customers and retain old ones. In service, OTC models drive improved customer satisfaction in terms of speed and quality. In manufacturing, OTC models provide insight to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs to stay competitive.

The OTC process begins when a customer places an order and ends when cash or other consideration-usually a promise to pay-has been received. The OTC cycle can be divided into five steps:

1. Sales Order Management

In this step, company representatives enter orders from customers into the company’s business system. As people place orders, the business system updates inventory levels and accounts receivable.

2. Sales Order Fulfillment

Based on demand, production schedules are determined in this step. Usually, companies have to balance customer service with efficient utilization of company resources-like people, machines, etc.-to meet customer demand while ensuring supply is available when needed.

3. Invoice and Accounts Receivable Management

When the product is shipped, the company bills its customer and receives payment for the invoice. A company can also arrange to receive payments more frequently through a cycle-accounts receivable management program (sometimes called continuous billing), which provides cash flow benefits to both the company and its customers.

4. Procurement and Accounts Payable Management

Purchasing products for resale is called procurement. The company pays its suppliers for these goods, usually within a specified time period-like accounts payable management programs (sometimes called early pay discounts). Suppliers are willing to offer these programs because it ensures them of getting paid faster, which is better for their cash flow.

5. Financial Close and Analysis

In this final step, a company reports its financial performance based on actual fulfillment of orders from the business system to the general ledger. This allows managers to identify trends in order volume, revenue recognition criteria, and other financial rules that impact processing through the OTC model.

The order-to-cash cycle is complicated by the fact that companies must manage many different relationship types with customers, which means that some customer orders require that both product and payment be handled differently. For example, some customers might want to pay upon receipt of the product, while others might offer credit terms or even pay in advance.

Finally, order-to-cash processes are complicated by the fact that many companies must reconcile data from different systems as orders move through the sale cycle. In addition to sales and finance systems, companies use information from their human resources department (for customer service requests), their operations support systems (in order to fulfill orders efficiently), their manufacturing systems (to determine production schedules), their inventory management systems (to update the quantity of available goods) and their accounts receivable, accounts payable, and procurement systems (for invoicing and receiving payments).

Managing all this information and ensuring that it is properly reconciled as orders move through the order-to-cash cycle can be a daunting task. In fact, according to research from Accenture, companies spend an average of 40 percent of the time they invest in core business processes on information technology and data management activities related to order management.

The new OTC model has been driven by new technologies and best practices that have spurred changed customer expectations and the need to give customers more choices in how they conduct business.

The Internet has no doubt changed customer expectations, but it is also changing the way companies do business-in many cases by broadening their horizons and increasing their potential markets.

However, these companies also said they can’t continue to do things with traditional technology and business models and expect success. They need new technologies that provide flexibility, responsiveness, and speed-and they need them now.

This is not possible with traditional systems-but is easily achievable with the new OTC business model. The simple fact is that this new OTC business model works well because it has been designed specifically for Internet commerce and integrates order fulfillment processes across the information technology and business process spectrum.

An example of a company that relies on the new OTC model is Amazon.com, which has built its OTC model to seamlessly manage customer orders and their appropriate fulfillment processes:

For many companies, order management has been an afterthought-and their OTC processes are often used as a dumping ground for all the work involved in fulfilling customer orders.

This is not surprising, given that order-to-cash is typically considered an operational task, rather than one of helping customers do business with your company. Instead of being seen as a revenue generator-like taking orders or fulfilling them-OTC processes are seen as unavoidable. This means that there is no investment in OTC technology because managers assume it does not matter how inefficient the process is, given its low visibility.

Unfortunately, this low-visibility assumption has led to an “out of sight; out of mind” scenario within many companies, where operational order-to-cash processes are thoughtlessly handled in a manner that reflects poorly on the company’s ability to deliver total customer satisfaction. This situation must change.

The OTC business model is unlike any other approach used by companies today to manage their customers’ total experience with their brands. It requires an understanding of new technology and business practices, an openness to change and the willingness to make the necessary investments.

As you can see, OTC isn’t just for early adopters anymore; it’s a viable approach that many companies are beginning to realize they must master in order to remain competitive. To learn more about how your company can use new OTC technologies and processes, visit the PureSoftware Web site at www.puresoftware.com