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Introduction
aplonHUB™ is a fast and simple way for banks to add financial messages routing functionality to existing legacy systems. Its light footprint and extensibility make it an ideal hub for banks of any size to manage and route messages such as SWIFT, ISO20022, SEPA, TARGET2, or local.
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It performs all the needed transformation and validation of your SWIFT, ISO20022, SEPA, TARGET2, or local messages before and after the connection with the Swift Alliance or Service bureau.
It integrates seamlessly with external AML systems to guarantee compliance.
aplonHUB™ Features
Functional
Supports incoming and outgoing SWIFT MT, ISO20022, TARGET2, SEPA, CBPR+, MEPS, P27
Handles Credit transfers, Direct Debits, Instant Payments, MT to ISO20022 translations
Checks and validates all messages and generates alerts where appropriate
Alerts are highlighted in separate views where an operator can review
Supports rich search capabilities on archived messages based on dates, status, or message contents.
Messages can also be exported on well-defined and user-friendly PDFs.
It correlates related messages (e.g., Replies, Returns) and displays them side-by-side for easy reconciliation.
Incoming MT300 and MT320 are compared with equivalent outgoing messages. The differences between the two will be highlighted.
Ability to automatically generate replies/requests for cancelation/returns/Rejects for SWIFT MT, SEPA, or ISO20022 messages
Integrates with SWIFT ACKs/NACKs
Connects with external AML systems and bypasses messages according to rules
Security & Auditing
Role-based access control (maker, authorizer, viewer, administrator, AML officer, etc.)
Audit log availability with an extensive search on date, object, action, or user.
Local Authentication (LAU) is implemented as recommended by SWIFT to provide integrity and authentication and protect files in transit between the application and the AutoClient.
Non-functional
Modern and user-friendly UX/UI
Secured by design (three-tier)
API architecture by design
High availability by design
Components & subsystems
The basic ingredients of aplonHUB are the SWIFT MT, ISO20022, CBPR+, TARGET2, SEPA, etc., libraries of PaymentComponents. These libraries are updated annually as the new rules and validations are published by the controlling authorities every year. At these times, a newer release of aplonHUB is published and distributed.
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SWIFT MT <> CBPR+
SWIFT MT <> Target2
Technical specifications
aplonHUB™ is a Java-based web application that can be deployed using any J2EE-compliant application server or servlet container.
It supports all leading RDBMSs, including MySQL, DB2, and SQL Server (preferred).
Requires Java 8 and above.
Clients can access the application from any web browser
Roles
aplonHUB provides a variety of distinct roles. Each role has specific permissions in the platform. This way, actions can be distributed to various users with different levels of access.
These roles are:
Admin
AMLOfficer
Authorizer
Maker
Viewer
Start/Stop Scheduler
Direct Debits Config
Admin:
The administrator of the system has access to the configuration of the system. The user is provided access to the system properties, which can be edited. Through the basic system properties, for example, the global configuration is available ( interconnections with SFTP, FTP, MQ, BICs, and password policies). Through the custom system properties, the option of customized configuration for different clients is given.
From the schedulers and their settings, the user can configure:
The input/output folder
Emails to notify on process end
File pattern for the files to read (i.e., *.csv)
Configure the scheduler execution
The AML status and its name can be edited
The user also has access to the users of the system. From this menu, the user can:
view the users
edit roles
enable/disable user
AML Officer:
The AML Officer has access to both incoming and outgoing messages (SEPA and MT).
From the Incoming and Outgoing menus, the following actions are available:
View SEPA messages and their details, view files, and change the AML status
View MT messages and their details, view files, and change the AML status
Search messages
View File logs
Change the AML status
Authorizer:
The Authorizer Officer has access to incoming and outgoing messages (SEPA and MT).
From the Incoming and Outgoing menus, the following actions are available:
View SEPA messages and their details, view files, and change the AML status
View MT messages and their details, view files, and change the AML status
Search messages
View File logs
View all the pending transactions waiting for authorization. Note that the user who authorizes it should be different from the user that initiates the action
Use the Custom Notification setup events to send notifications from the schedulers, like when a rejection is received, send an email
Add rules to be handled by the schedulers. For example, when the amount is greater than 100, then do a specific action
Add holidays to avoid scheduled runs
Use Audit Trail to watch for actions that happened on a transaction. For example, bulked, debulked, authorized, etc
Can pause or resume a pending outgoing transaction from the Pending → Outgoing menu
Maker:
The Maker role has access to the:
View SEPA messages and their details, view files, and change the AML status
View MT messages and their details, view files, and change the AML status
Search messages
Recall outgoing payments (requires authorization)
Return incoming payments (requires authorization)
View File logs
View alerts
View all the pending transactions waiting for authorization. Note that the user who authorizes it should be different from the user that initiates the action
Create payment
Use Audit Trail to watch for actions that happened on a transaction. For example, bulked, debulked, authorized, etc
Viewer:
The viewer role has access to the:
Outgoing/incoming menus
Pending
Security
From the Incoming and Outgoing menus, the following actions are available:
View SEPA messages and their details, view files, and change the AML status
View MT messages and their details, view files, and change the AML status
Search messages
View File logs
View at the outgoing messages all pending transactions that will be picked up by the next outgoing scheduled run
Use Audit Trail to watch for actions that happened on a transaction. For example, bulked, debulked, authorized, etc
Start/Stop Scheduler:
The Start/Stop scheduler role has access to:
Outgoing/incoming menus
Pending
Configuration
Security
From the Incoming and Outgoing menus, the following actions are available:
View SEPA messages and their details, view files, and change the AML status
View MT messages and their details, view files, and change the AML status
Search messages
View File logs
View alerts
View at the outgoing messages all pending transactions that will be picked up by the next outgoing scheduled run
Can configure the scheduler executions
Use Audit Trail to watch for actions that happened on a transaction. For example, bulked, debulked, authorized, etc
Direct Debits Config:
The Direct Debits Config role has access only to the "SEPA DD Config" menu.
From this menu, the user can:
Perform all the operations of the Creditors List, whose content is necessary for setting up SEPA Direct Debits.
Can whitelist Creditors for SEPA Direct Debits configuration.
Can blacklist Creditors for SEPA Direct Debits configuration.
Sample screens
Incoming/Outgoing menus.
SEPA tab:
Sample screens
Below there are a number of sample screens to provide you with a taste of aplonHUB
Incoming/Outgoing menus.
SEPA
Permissions: Only users with Viewer, Maker, Authorizer role has access to this view.
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From this view, users are able to see all outgoing/incoming files that are sent/received through aplonHUB with their status and some basic details of each transaction, like ids and amount. Once the user clicks on a transaction, then the following view will appear with the transaction details.
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If the user has the Maker role, then is able to make an action on the specific transaction. For example if the transaction is an outgoing payment, then the user is able to create an outgoing recall request for this transaction. Different actions are allowed per direction and message type, for example you can recall an outgoing payment, but you can return an incoming payment.
The user in this tab has access to the list of incoming SEPA messages, the file log, and alerts. Using criteria such as date, tags, and other searching messages is made simple. Files are expandable to display the messages they contain and their details (the same applies to outgoing too).
At SEPA, by selecting a file, the user can view detailed information
Details like:
Bulk SN
Message Name ID (i.e camt.027)
Settlement Date
Message ID
Total amount
For each message, available details can also be viewed. Details like:
Transaction SN
Transaction Id
Transaction Status
Amount
The creditor's account
The user has the option to export the files, bulks, and transactions in PDF or excel reports.
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Example of SEPA tab usage:
SEPA payments list and details
This is a list of outgoing payment files (similar to incoming). A payment file (outgoing or incoming) can contain more than one message, and any message can contain more than one transaction.
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In each of the transactions, the user can view detailed information.
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Outgoing payment is returned
An outgoing pacs.004 has been returned with a reason code.
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By opening the details of the transaction, we can also view the incoming message related to the original transaction.
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Return of incoming payment
An incoming pacs.008 can be returned with a reason code.
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We can select a reason code from the dropdown menu.
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Click on the "Return payment"
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Select a return code in order to send it back to the sender. The payment is marked as “To Be returned” until the action is approved and executed.
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These actions that require authorization by another user appear in Pending > Authorizations
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After the return action has been authorized by another user, a task scheduler will take action and create an outgoing file (in this case, a pacs.004) related to the original message (pacs.008).
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SWIFT MT
Expanded SWIFT MT messages with user-friendly tag names. An audit trail of all actions performed by users on the message is always available.
If the message has a reply message, then this will be displayed side by side.
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Search
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At the search messages tab, the user can search messages using the following criteria:
Date
Transaction status (received, settled, etc.)
Debtor IBAN
Creditor IBAN
Alerts
Alerted messages are displayed in a separate view for better handling. The user can export the alerts in PDF or excel format.
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Pending
The Pending menu organizes the payments into two categories. In the Outgoing screen are payments that are ready to be sent, and Authorisation contains payments that a user must manually check and approve before they are sent.
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An authorizer can also PAUSE a ready-to-go transaction for later. The user will see the paused transactions by selecting the Paused option in the dropdown above the list. Those transactions will be ignored by all schedulers until an authorizer chooses to RESUME this transaction (see the bellow screenshot)
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If necessary, a user can manually create a payment (with a role that allows him this action) from the Create payment menu.
The user will have to enter the necessary information.
For payment information:
Transaction ID
End to End ID
Settlement Account
Settlement Date
For Debtor information:
Name
Address
Country code
IBAN
For Creditor Information:
Name
Address
Country code
IBAN
BIC
Remittance Information (Unstr)
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Configuration
The configuration menu provides options for the setup of system settings (basic and custom that increase the user experience), AML statuses, scheduled tasks, notifications, and rules regarding actions depending on custom conditions and holidays that are configurable by the administrator.
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Audit Trail
User roles with access to the audit trail screen have the ability to search using criteria. The actor, the time, and the context are recorded for every action.
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Users Tab
Users with access at the users' tab can enable/disable a user and search for a user using criteria such as:
E-mail
First Name
Last Name
Role
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