News
eFunds signs to distribute GFG Group’s
simulation and testing tool GFG: FINsim
20 October 2005 / Media Release
GFG Group has signed a worldwide distribution agreement with eFunds, which will see GFG’s innovative GFG:FINsim testing and simulation software made available more widely, particularly in the North American market.
eFunds is the largest transaction switch provider in the United States, and is well-known for its Connex and Oasis transaction switching software, used by a wide range of Tier One and Tier Two banks and financial institutions.
GFG Groups general manager for international sales and marketing, Marie Tamplin-Woods, says GFG:FINsim is a ‘highly innovative’ tool for banks with electronic financial transaction (EFT) networks. GFG:FINsim enables software developers and testers to have any make of Automatic Teller Machine (ATM), Point of Sale device (POS) or “transaction switch” on their desktop. This simulation and testing tool is particularly valuable, she says, for customers considering adoption of emerging standards such as EMV and, RKI, enabling full testing before go live.
Regardless of how an EFT network is set up, GFG:FINsim can simulate any of the major components. There is no longer a need to make expensive purchases of test devices or create physical test cards specifically for development. GFG:FINsim significantly reduces the cost of development and testing, drastically cutting the time to market for new software releases and significantly improving the quality of software being delivered.
The following sample list of customers gives an insight into the versatility of GFG:FINsim.
NAB have used GFG:FINsim extensively in their IBM environment to test new releases of their Connex transaction switch, as well as standard regression tests on all new “transaction switch” software. More recently to test the impact on their processing of the triple DES cryptographic security standard and currently to test EMV, the MasterCard and Visa’s chip card standard.
ANZ use GFG:FINsim for simplifying testing of remote key initialisation(RKI) in their Point Of Sale Terminals. ANZ also use GFG:FINsim as their tool of choice to stress test the capabilities of their "transaction switch".
Pulse Australia initially used GFG:FINsim to simulate their new POS terminals. Terminal delivery was very late however by supplying GFG with the terminal specifications for incorporating into GFG:FINsim Pulse were able to ensure that the “transaction switch” had all the required changes developed and tested prior to receiving the physical terminals keeping the project on track for the original go-live date.
Members Equity relies on FDI (CashCard) to acquire transactions and therefore don’t have their own EFT network. GFG:FINsim is used as a cost effective way of generating test transaction for the FDI and MasterCard links.
St George has replaced its previous testing tools with FINsim, training took place over 2 days and within 5 days the entire environment was simulated.
The bank of South Pacific in PNG has used FINsim for several years to test their production system changes.
Shell is using FINsim to assist development of new point of sale terminals to ensure quality of hardware delivery and faster certification and time to market.
ASB are upgrading Open/2 and use FINsim to regression test the entire system as it is today and then run the identical test after the release is in pre-production to carry out a full financial reconciliation of all transactions to ensure that they have worked or failed as expected.
ETSL used FINsim specifically to performance test the new Tandem platform which had a reduced number (but faster) CPUS, to ensure correct allocation of processes across CPUs. Also using it for EMV testing.
EFTPOS New Zealand is using FINsim to test terminal specification changes and software changes.
Euronet development centre in Europe has used FINsim as a development and test tool for some years.
eFUNDS are the owners of CONNEXTM and Oasis IST® software solutions and have principal locations in USA, Canada, UK, India and Australia. GFG and eFUNDS have just completed a worldwide distribution agreement for GFG:FINsim.
