Bacs, the UK automated clearing house for retail payments, is to use technology from Sun Microsystems, BEA, and Oracle as the foundation for a major systems overhaul, christened NewBacs.
Bacs processes over 3.5 billion financial transactions annually with more than 60 million on a peak day. On an average day, more than 13 million direct debits and direct credits are processed.
The main aims of the renewal programme are to enable Bacs to meet forecast growth in electronic payment volumes, to introduce improved security, as well as to replace current payments systems with a generic payments infrastructure. The system will also aim to improve support services to member companies by migrating to an e-based exchange of information.
Sun will supply Bacs with a new technology infrastructure based on the high-end Sun Fire 15000 server and associated services. Sun Professional Services will assist in the design and deployment of the new system infrastructure, which will implemented by 2005. Phase one of the programme will be introduced in 2003.
The NewBacs solution will also comprise Weblogic Server from BEA, 9i database and Real Application Cluster (RAC) solutions from Oracle and developer services from Concise.