Notable Projects

Past Project Example #1

Interac had an aggressive business mandate to launch Apple Pay with domestic debit cards in Canada in 2016. They needed to build a brand new Tokenization Service Provider (TSP) platform to integrate with Apple Pay service. Interac needed a versatile and hands-on architect who could lead the implementation from concept to market launch in a very aggressive timeline. Given our track record, the executives procured our professional service in 2015.

Our principal consultant was assigned as the lead architect at Interac for the Mobile Payment Program. He contributed to the successful market launch of Apple Pay with Interac's Tokenization Service Provider (TSP) platform and Debit Cards with the majority of Financial Institutions in Canada. Interac TSP was the world's first Apple Pay implementation with domestic debit cards in 2016.

From nothing but a business mandate with a 3-person technical team, to vendor selections, to resource hiring, to team formation, to design, to development, to QA, to operation readiness, to certified and live production in brand new data centers, all completed within a mere 6 months. The platform was officially launched with Apple Pay in 2016. It was soon followed by the successive market launches of HCE, Google (Android) Pay, and Samsung Pay in Canada within the next 18 months as well.

Our principal consultant contributed to the planning, architecture, design, development, implementation, integration, and best practices in the execution of the technology platform, including hands-on configuration, development, and troubleshooting the entire solution stack. He led not only a relatively small internal team, but also a large number of external resources from various suppliers and partners to deliver an integrated solution that met all market launch criteria.

It was a massive undertaking with many resource constraints. To meet our aggressive deadlines, the team not only worked around the clock but also adapted an execution approach that involved concurrent agile planning, design, development, testing, and integration. The core platform required complex integration with a few dozen software components and thousands of internal and external computing, data, security, and networking nodes inter-connected with a few dozen data centers and across many time-zones and continents.

Although the program faced many challenges, the team overcame all the obstacles up to the launch days. The integrated solution proved to be highly secure, scalable, extendable, robust, and cost-effective relative to other comparable global deployments in UK, NA, Asia, EU, LA, AUS. The platform proved to be a highly resilient and secure financial system with mission-critical fault tolerance and carrier-grade high availability, that met and exceeded their customer's and partner's requirements.

Past Project Example #2

RBC was the largest domestic bank with global footprints based in Canada. Their Enterprise Solution Architecture group was responsible to provide solution architecture expertise and consultancy to the organization. The group needed a senior architect to supplement their architecture resourcing needs.

Given our proven track record, the group procured our professional service in multiple periods. To meet their special needs, we assigned our principal consultant as a senior architect to the group. By working diligently across the vast organization, he proved to be a key contributor to the successful delivery and launch of the following multi-million dollar programs during 2009-2014:

  1. Mobile Banking
  2. Online Banking
  3. Federated Customer Identity and Access Management
  4. Core Banking Transformation (Mortgage and Loans)
  5. Enterprise Financial Reporting Transformation
  6. Enterprise Program and Project Management Transformation
  7. Enterprise Payment Transformation (e.g. Wired Payments (SWIFT), ACH, EFT, EMT, Cheque, EDI, etc.)

Our principal consultant successfully applied his expertise and best practices to integrate both legacy systems and bleeding-edge technology stacks for these complex and transformational programs across all RBC LOBs and IT landscape.

Past Project Example #3

EQ Bank is a unique Digital Bank in Canada. They needed a senior banking and payment technology consultant to help them launch their brand new Card and Payment Product Offerings. Based on our proven track record, their CDO procured our professional service for the early stages of the program in 2017.

Our principal consultant provided his business and technical expertise in Digital Payments and Banking space with focus on mobile payments with debit and credit cards from business, to products, to operations, to technology lens. To lay out the requirements across the organization needed to roll out these future EQB products, he analyzed all the current capabilities of EQB and their vendors by engaging their internal and external resources. To develop the solution architecture, he applied his expertise in Banking and Lending Systems, domestic and global debit/credit card schemes, EMVCo and PCI-DSS Standards, Identity and Access Management, Infrastructure, Network, and Security in a hybrid cloud model.

He guided the organization in their Product Development, Business, Operations, Call Center, Security and Risks, Finance, and Technology Requirements, Reference Architecture, Vendor Assessments, Cost and Gap analysis. His contribution enabled the organization to move the program forward.

Past Project Example #4

CDIC is a Federal Crown Corporation that provides deposit protection in Canada. Its board of directors consists of appointed delegates from Department of Finance, Bank of Canada, and member financial institutions in Canada. Their senior management team required a technology executive advisor to assist them with developing a comprehensive five-year enterprise strategy for their future Identity and Payment capabilities in 2018. They required an expert who must possess extensive business strategy, product development, and technology experience in implementing Customer Identity, Banking, and Payment solutions in Canada.

Based on our proven track record, their senior management procured our professional service to develop a comprehensive five-year enterprise strategy for their Customer Identity and Payment capabilities in 2018. Our technology consultant collaborated with different representatives across the organization. He was able to identify all the current capabilities from business, operations, call center, to technology lens. Based on his market analysis, he developed a comprehensive 5-year enterprise strategy and roadmap outlining the future capabilities for each enterprise domain along with a number of recommendations. The organization was satisfied with his deliverables and was able to move the program forward based on his recommendations.

Past Project Example #5

PharmaTrust was a healthcare startup based in GTA, ON, Canada. They aimed to disrupt the global Pharmacy industry with their unique Drug Dispensing Kiosk Platform (MedCentre). They were entering into the final round of multi-million dollar investment funding from both private, VC, and public sectors. They already had successful field trials with their customers and they had to grow their team rapidly. Their executive team had procured our professional service to assist their architecture and delivery team in the early stages of their development on a short term basis in 2012.

We assigned our principal consultant as the senior architect reporting directly to their CTO. The project required extensive reverse engineering of various proprietary Healthcare and Pharmacy systems, and complex integration with their revolutionary Robotic Kiosk platform. Their executive team also required their Distributed Kiosk platform to be HIPAA and PCI-DSS compliant, and to use a mix of Unix and Windows open source and commercial software. The solution was also required to support complex messaging and API integration using HL7, and a variety of messaging protocols and application stacks. The software must be deployed in a variety of selected commercial hardware platforms in a hybrid cloud model. Although the engagement lasted only a few months, our principal consultant was able to contribute and shape their architecture and development effort.

Past Project Example #6

TELUS, the second largest telco in Canada, selected iGate (acquired PATNI Computer Systems) as the consulting service vendor for their mobile commerce and billing redesign initiative in 2006. PATNI Computer Systems, the fifth largest Indian off-shoring company at the time, needed a local company with in-depth mobile and IT integration expertise in Canada to partner with at the time. Through many rounds of discussion, both iGate (PATNI) and TELUS procured our professional service for their inter-carrier Mobile Wallet and Payment Program because of our mobile device, telecommunication, and IT consulting expertise.

The partnership evolved into a three-year multi-program engagement that resulted in successful deliveries of the following programs for TELUS:

  1. Mobile Wallet & Payment (Zoompass - WPS and EnStream joint venture between TELUS, Bell, and Rogers)
  2. MVNO (Koodo)
  3. TELUS Prepaid and Postpaid Billing Redesign
  4. TELUS SMS Redesign
  5. TELUS Client Care Support System
  6. TELUS OSS and BSS Provisioning System
  7. TELUS Customer Billing Transformation

In all the above initiatives, our principal consultant led many aspects of the solution delivery such as: requirement gathering and analysis, project management, information architecture, system architecture design, in-house and off-shore solution development, integration, and user acceptance testing. Both TELUS and iGate were satisfied with our contributions throughout the engagement.

Past Project Example #7

Nortel Networks was the world's second largest telecommunication equipment vendor in the late 1990s and early 2000 (dot-com era), with over 90,000 employees and over $20 billion in annual revenue. Their executive team had created a new Internet Application and Service Line of Business (LOB) to extend their market into the Internet application and service space.

Time to market was a critical success factor for this brand new Nortel Networks LOB. However, Nortel had very limited world-class in-house expertise in the Internet Application and Service space at the time. It was also difficult to source external expertise due to competition. Through many rounds of rapid successive discussions, the executive team of this new Nortel LOB procured Timeleap Inc. to provide system architecture expertise in 1999-2000.

Our principal consultant was assigned as the senior system architect in this new Nortel LOB. He was a key contributor in various Nortel global customer and partner engagements such as: SBC, AT&T, Quest, Level 3, MCI-Worldcom, Sprint, Verizon, Orange, Vodafone, Mannesmann, Chunghwa Telecom, Bell Canada, and Comverse. He also contributed to a number of initiatives with various Internet and Telecommunications Standard Organizations on behalf of Nortel Networks.

These multi-million dollar engagements spanned from platform conceptualization, pre-sales support, project management, solution architecture, solution development, solution deployment, and to post-sales support. Through active collaboration with various stakeholders, the team developed an extendable and secure carrier-grade hosted application and messaging (ASP) platform within 6 months. The products were successfully implemented for many Nortel customers all over the world. In addition, our principal also contributed to various Java and mobile standards.

Past Project Example #8

Crosskey Systems, one of the top telecommunication OSS software vendors in the world in 1999. They needed a distributed system and OSS expert to help them to optimize their network management system. Their system had evolved over many years and had accumulated with many performance issues that their in-house experts could not resolve. Based on our technical expertise, their senior management team had procured our professional service to tackle their most challenging technical issues.

Our company assigned our top expert in real-time systems with in-depth C++, Java, and CORBA experience to this engagement. Our consultant collaborated with their core development team in analyzing their complex real-time multi-threaded system based on a mix of C++, CORBA, and Java proprietary software components.

Our consultant established a formal and rigorous agile and quantifiable system engineering process that encompassed the following methods:

1) Performance Instrumentation

2) System Hot-Spot and Bottleneck Identification (e.g. CPU, Threads, Memory, I/O)

3) Code Re-factoring and Reverse Engineering

4) Performance Modeling and Simulation