QNB deploys FSS Smart Recon to modernise reconciliation operations

By Leandra Monteiro

FSS Technologies, a global provider of integrated payment products and a payments processor, announced a multi-country engagement with QNB, the largest financial institution in the Middle East and Africa, to boost the efficiency of its reconciliation operations. FSS Smart Recon and Dispute Management have been implemented by QNB Qatar and QNB Oman and the FSS Dispute Management module will soon be deployed by QNB Sudan to address customer disputes.

The surge in digital payments adoption combined with the emergence of new payment rails and greater regulatory oversight in the MEA region has fuelled the need for digitalising critical reconciliation systems. FSS Smart Recon is a crucial component of QNB’s strategy to be digital to the core and will automate and provide greater control over financial close processes.

FSS Smart Recon extends a centralised solution to QNB to manage the complete reconciliation process for multiple payment types, enabling the bank to achieve greater agility through streamlined back-office operations. FSS Smart Recon’s integrated functionality spans crucial aspects of the reconciliation lifecycle – data aggregation and transformation, transaction matching, exception analysis and management, dispute management and settlement.

Post-deployment, FSS Smart Recon has helped QNB reap substantive efficiency gains. By optimising time-intensive, manual tasks, FSS Smart Recon lowers reliance on busy IT support teams and rationalises manpower costs by 30 per cent. The streamlining of reconciliation processes has further helped achieve a 50 per cent improvement in exception handling time, which translates into lower dispute volumes and higher customer satisfaction.

Commenting on the partnership, Nedhal Al-Nuaimi, General Manager Group Operations, QNB Group said, “In an era of rapid payments digitalisation, as a market leader, it is imperative that our back-office operations are in step with market-facing innovations. FSS’ extensive experience in serving reconciliation needs of multiple financial institutions globally has helped us transform our core reconciliation operations to better manage risk, address the need for timely compliance with regulatory demands and achieve operational excellence.”

Commenting on the partnership, Jaishankar A L, CEO FSS PayTech, said, “FSS Smart Recon draws on our extensive experience of serving diverse and evolving transaction reconciliation needs of global banks. We are pleased to be working with QNB to modernise reconciliation operations while protecting its cost base as volumes ramp up. With our zero-touch, future-ready solution, we are confident that we would help Qatar National Bank scale to address reconciliation needs for new payment opportunities that lie ahead.”

QNB leverages FSS Smart Recon to perform two-way and three-way card reconciliation between the Switch, Interchange, and the Core Banking Systems for Master Card, VISA, China Union Pay, JCB and Amex.  FSS Smart Recon supports transparent and auditable workflows that provide complete visibility into the reconciliation process through each stage of the financial close cycle – from data ingestion to financial posting. Dynamic dashboards empower reconciler and management teams with business and operational insights for improved operational and business decisioning. Benchmarked to support 1 billion transaction records in an hour, can efficiently accommodate diverse reconciliation workloads.