Synthesis began its Microsoft Azure journey with cloud opportunities arising from customers.  Some key success stories include Synthesis’s involvement in payment modernisation and the development of PayShap, the rapid payments platform for real-time payments. The architecture required high performance and latency. The solution leverages Microsoft Azure’s cloud infrastructure to ensure robust scalability and maintains sub-second transaction processing through its distributed architecture. Globally, Synthesis has digitalised and transformed the logistical system of one the largest logistics shipping companies in Singapore. The transition evolved from a manual process incorporating different partners, departments, and countries to an automated digital platform hosted on Microsoft Azure, explains Rui.

Microsoft Azure recently hosted the Ignite session, from November 18 to November 22, 2024, at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, to share innovation on data and AI. The rise of AI agents and security was very topical. Microsoft is investing in data, AI, and some of the custodian products such as data fabric. Some of these automated tools can be used to streamline and centralise data. Orchestrated agents will be integrated with Microsoft products to enable automated day-to-day tasks, understand, and look for trends and patterns within the data. It’s like having your own personal assistant, says Rui.

Microsoft already has Copilot which enables users to use prompts to access information easily. Add in a prompt that says, “Give me a short write-up that explains what Microsoft Azure is” and within seconds, the tool generates text; “Microsoft Azure is a comprehensive cloud computing platform and service created by Microsoft. It offers a wide range of cloud services, including computing, analytics, storage, and networking. Users can choose and configure these services to develop, deploy, and manage applications through Microsoft’s global network of data centres. Azure supports various programming languages, tools, and frameworks, making it a versatile solution for building and scaling applications in the cloud.” To add to this, orchestration agents will further enable prompts that will review lengthy documents and only pull-out necessary information.

Security is a priority in discussion with Microsoft investing in tools to enable data safety. Guard rails can ensure that data is user-specific and not exposed to everyone. The sensitivity of the data needs to be considered to ensure that the right guardrails are put in place for AI agents, adding an additional layer of security advises Rui.

Everyone has an opinion of AI and what it means for future business. There are both positive and negative connotations around it. Rui believes that any malicious intent around AI will be addressed by regulations. The concept of the Industrial Revolution that came into effect resulted in the automation of machines that have replaced human involvement and streamlined processes. It was not a case of simply replacing the workforce but working in conjunction to equip the workforce with the skills to manage the machines. Replacing jobs with robots and developing skills amongst resources. Mundane tasks can be replaced by AI or robots and, eventually, there will be an equilibrium.

Think of the advancement of transportation and the concept of when cars came to be. Individuals were using horse carriages and there were jobs in farming horses and building carriages that were taken away. But at the same time, there were new jobs created with the need to build cars. There’s always this sort of equilibrium that forms a balance concludes Rui.

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A leading South African international banking and wealth management group has approached Synthesis to assist them with the building of their next-gen payments platform and enable delivery of PayShap on it.

Bank strategic intent is to modernize the legacy banking systems and to build a cloud based next generation payments platform which aims to unify payment processing into a single API driven platform which is highly customizable and provides a single interface into the payments’ backbone. This payments platform will initially serve as the foundation for PayShap and eventually will support all payment types.

The Solution

Synthesis assisted the bank in building one of the foundational blocks of their unified payments platform that is instrumental for processing PayShap payments, and also helped the bank to modernize their payments technology architecture. The architecture is built on an event driven model which is known to provide lower latency for real-time processing. This also helps in decoupling the various systems within a bank thereby reducing failure points. In order to execute the desired solution, Synthesis combined strong domain expertise in payments with technical competence in Microsoft Azure, API build, Akka.NET, and DevOps.

The Results

The solution has provided the bank with a scalable, reliable, high performing platform that delivers operational efficiency, simplified governance and improved customer experience. The platform is built to cater for the futuristic needs of the bank by placing strong emphasis on cloud native – micro-service driven architecture. This platform currently only supports PayShap payments but in future will be enhanced to support high value as well as mass payments.

With a platform built for the future and an ability to process PayShap transactions which is the need of the hour – the bank is geared up for their payment’s modernization journey, and this is only the beginning.

The post Enabling client to deliver South Africa’s PayShap payments and to scale up the technology and prepare for the next generation banking. appeared first on Synthesis.