Bank of Italy has awarded SIA-SSB a five year, EUR23 million, contract to manage its interbank computerised archive of bad cheques and payment cards.
The archive - established after the decriminalisation of a slew of minor offences - contains personal details on subjects who have drawn cheques without authorisation or funds and are no longer allowed to use cards because of non-payments.
Under the deal, which could be extended by a further three years, SIA-SSB will manage the entire IT system at Centrale di Allarme Interbancaria (CAI) headquarters.
In addition, the vendor will take charge of interconnections with remote sites located at notifying bodies - banks, Poste Italiane, supervised financial intermediaries issuing cards, prefectures through the Interior Ministry and judicial authorities through the Ministry of Justice.
SIA-SSB will also provide a link to network infrastructures participating in Sitrad, the system for electronic data transmission, and disaster recovery procedures. The system sees the CAI exchange data with the remote sites through the Italian Interbank Network. The notifying bodies must send SIA-SSB the information related to the various irregular payment tools on a daily basis and in return will receive confirmations and aggregated reporting results.