Optimizing data validation: Banco Carrefour’s success story

 

Can processes that are seemingly impossible because of their great demand be optimized? The answer is yes, as long as you have the right tool.

That is what Banco Carrefour found out when it struck up a partnership with :hiperstream. It all began in a scenario where the data validation process for the billing of its products was very costly and not very accurate. The company chose to optimize this validation and was successful. As a bonus, it improved its relationship with the end customer.

Sampling and inconsistencies: a difficult starting point

In order to understand how Banco Carrefour built up the strong validation system it has with :hiperstream nowadays, we must first contextualize the scenario at the early stages of this partnership.
 
As a bank, Carrefour has a catalog of products, consisting of  credit cards. These products require data validation, a complex process that includes due dates, promotions, interest rates and tax regulations.
 
This system is very challenging to manage, since it implies entering data correctly, taking into account the volume of business and number of regulations involved. Banco Carrefour was facing a situation that did not help make this process any easier. The credit card bill validations were made by sampling, thus making them flawed and unreliable.
 
Furthermore, validation was performed by two people using a time-consuming and very demanding process. Over time, the number of products and credit card bills started to increase, as it usually does with successful companies. The mistakes were compounded by large growth, ultimately making the operation so impractical that it became impossible to keep processing data so inaccurately.
 
At this point, Banco Carrefour decided to seek a process that would be smarter and that could optimize the data validation process. In talks with :hiperstream, it paired up to devise the HiperCheck / DVA tool that was streamlined to meet the needs of the company. The process changed drastically for the best.

:hiperstream and the game-changing optimization 

 “Without any doubt, this is an amazing tool that offers the automation we did not have before.”
- Celso Soares, Coordinator of Operations, Production and Tangible Assets at Banco Carrefour

Betting on the digital world, :hiperstream has come to offer complete automation to the Banco Carrefour data validation process. Using automation, each credit card bill can be validated, and not only the samples. This approach enabled acquiring a macro perspective of the HiperCheck / DVA process, quickly and accurately. In addition, the tool helps find critical points and possible process flaws.
 
The report shows credit card bills by product, organized by payments made on time or overdue, outstanding balance etc. Regulations can also be checked at any time. If there are any inconsistencies, the system points them out, thus providing greater accuracy.
 
However, speeding up the process was not the only benefit of this turnaround. The process also became much more cost-effective. After all, there is no longer any need for handling paper, reprinting documents or spending money on staff overtime. As a matter of fact, only one staff member is responsible for performing this validation today, in an operation that takes less than two hours to be completed, with utmost reliability.
 
It is a practice that even facilitates audit routines. After all, the tool enables information to be retrieved from previous days with total safety. All in all, the partnership between Banco Carrefour and :hiperstream has enabled the financial institution to gain a very high level of efficiency, in many aspects.

Changing for the better with :hiperstream

Whereas two people were responsible for the process before, often working overtime and at a stressful pace, today only one is enough. We must also consider that, now, the number of credit card bills to be validated has more than doubled, involving over three and a half million bank payment slips a month. Assuredly, the data automation provided by :hiperstream enables Banco Carrefour to process all these credit card bills faster and with much more reliability.
 
An example of how the :hiperstream tool works is represented by the Resolution 4655, set down by the Brazilian Central Bank. This resolution made some changes to the existing compulsory payment process, by requiring banks to spread payments on the outstanding balance due on credit card bill charges left unpaid after 30 calendar days. It was complicated to explain this to the end customer, not to mention the challenge of validating a procedure that used a sampling system.

Thanks to the :hiperstream tool and its level of complexity and validation of rules, two major mistakes were identified in the early stages of the implementation. These errors were reported as soon as they were found, and were corrected before the credit card bills were printed, that is to say, well before they were delivered to the end customers. This early detection prevented about 18 thousand bills from being sent mistakenly, and averted a loss of about 58 thousand Reais. Everything was checked and corrected quickly and safely before the final step was taken, ensuring the end customer a good experience.

Examples like these show that the data automation provided by :hiperstream enabled Banco Carrefour to gain time, quality of work and of life for its team, since it allowed both the reduction of activities after hours and emergency actions on weekends and holidays.

From the management’s point of view, this data automation means a gain in how the work is carried out, since the team may now devote more effort to innovation, leaving the operational aspects to the tool. This has made the credit card bill validation process, which was purely operational before, much more strategic now.

Challenges for the future  

HiperCheck / DVA has raised data validation at Banco Carrefour to another level. Now with a reduced margin of error, the process is in constant evolution, and is updated daily to comply with any new rules. In other words, it is adapted and adjusted continuously, in a dynamically way. 
 
 “HiperCheck / DVA is very much alive. New features give staff members the autonomy to customize rules, thus leading to proactive gains and optimized time.”
- Daniel Carvalho, Banco Carrefour Operations Manager
 
The tool implemented by :hiperstream is improved constantly to meet the demands for its use, and is already drawing the attention of other departments at Carrefour, because its unified concept integrates different areas. For example, departments that deal with the offering and acquiring of Personal Credit products have already expressed their intention to adopt HiperCheck / DVA. This shows that the company, as a whole, can already see how powerful this tool is in mitigating process errors.
 
The successful partnership between :hiperstream and Banco Carrefour is a perfect example of how data automation can change the operational landscape of a company.
 
By betting on the optimization of processes, companies can build a much more efficient internal work routine. Moreover, the relationship with the end customer also improves, because when billing errors are reduced, the number of complaints from customer services and customer protection agencies is also reduced.
 
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