Application Development Outsourcing

In April 2005, the Child Trust Fund (CTF) was launched in the UK.   CTF is a unique savings and investment account for children. This government programme provides all children born since September 1st, 2002 with a £250 endowment as the basis for a fund to build up over the first 18 years of a child's life.   In 2004, our client - a leading business process outsourcing provider with overall responsibility for administering the CTF on behalf of a number of providers, turned to Mastek for IT support. The administration capability to process CTF applications had to be built from the ground up, in just 12 months.   The client defined and built the operating model and business processes.   Mastek had to be flexible and respond quickly as the requirements evolved.   We adapted our Elixir framework, built on leading edge technology, to create a solution that met the specific needs of the Fund.   Timescales were tight and the business requirements continued to change throughout the development process. External interfaces with fund managers, the Inland Revenue and BACS added to the complexity of the project.   In January 2005, the system was ready ahead of time, and went live as scheduled, on the 5th of April.   The platform now has more than 130,000 accounts being administered and will increase to over 1 million accounts within three years.   Engagement Facts The first back-office solution in the UK developed for the management of Child Trust Fund schemes A browser based, end-to-end solution Support for re-branding and adaptability for multiple clients Provides interface to the call centre executives 360 man-months of development work   Technology Facts Platform: Java/J2EE on Unix/Linux Middleware: Oracle 9iAs Database: Oracle 9i Development: OOAD, UML, J-Builder, Eclipse top