National Bank of Canada Banks on mrc

Distributed or client/server computing is undoubtedly the architecture of the future. For many companies, however, the future is now. For a variety of reasons -- companies are merged or acquired, individual divisions develop unique applications, etc. -- these companies already find themselves operating in some form of heterogeneous computing environment. In the absence of a clean slate, how can companies address their requirements for integrated information management systems?

The solution for one company, National Bank of Canada, is to use its IBM AS/400 midrange computer and 4GL/code generation software from michaels, ross & cole, ltd. to pull the required data across disparate applications and multiple platforms.

The National Bank of Canada information systems environment includes a mainframe demand deposit account (DDA) system and two AS/400 application packages -- an asset-based lending manager system and an international banking applications system. These AS/400 applications are outsourced to a third-party bank's mainframe. The National Bank of Canada's New York City-based AS/400 is responsible for all US systems and development. Additionally, there are a variety of pc's and terminals dispersed throughout the National Bank of Canada's New York City office and 15 branch locations.

"The objective of using the AS/400 and mrc-Productivity Series was to consolidate our information management and reporting systems," stated Pierre Seguin, vice president of MIS. "Every night we download copies of our mainframe production database into the AS/400 libraries in which the developers may create reports, summarize the data, maintain those databases or create new databases."

"One of the more advanced cross-platform applications that we've developed is our adjusted general ledger," Seguin continued. Month-end balances are taken from the international banking system file, the database massaged to put it into a form usable by the accounting department. A customized screen allows the accounting staff to create the necessary adjustments. Those adjustments are merged back with the balances, the balances are adjusted and a report of adjustments is produced. Seguin remarked, "By using the mrc-Productivity Series, we can provide our users with this functionality without changing the base application code."

A major challenge in a multi-platform system is reconciling database differences. Once the data has been appropriately captured, the mrc-Productivity Series greatly minimizes the time required to run validity checks between the different systems. It accomplishes this task by producing balancing reports on each database. The mrc program will compare all loans to corporations, for example, reported on the general ledger account on the mainframe system with the balances on the international banking system. If the difference between the two systems is zero, then they balance out. If there is a discrepancy, then the mrc-Productivity Series can easily locate where the discrepancy lies within a particular account grouping.

Demand on the NY MIS team is not only for more advanced reporting applications but for additional on-line applications as well. Plans call for the development of special classes of objects using mrc's Template Programming Languagetm (TPLtm) to facilitate this development process. TPL will enable the National Bank of Canada to specify in these template objects ahead of time what code will be generated by describing the functions and standards of the applications or reports being developed.

"Over the past three years, we have used the mrc-Productivity Series to create more than 100 applications running in different frequencies -- daily, weekly, monthly. So, we've done quite a bit with it," reported Seguin. "I don't know if many companies do the kind of production work that we do with the system, but for us, the mrc-Productivity Series is an important production tool."