Background

The Post Office card account was set up to offer a simple bank account, specifically for receiving benefits, state pensions and tax credit payments.

The Chip and PIN card cannot be used to pay for goods and services anywhere as the card is restricted to benefit payment credits and cash withdrawals over Post Office counters.

The requirement for the POCA contract was to personalise the English and Welsh card designs and either distribute them via mail packs or send in bulk to the Post Office Head Quarters in Swindon.

TCT secured a tender to manufacture, personalise, fulfil and distribute the POCA cards throughout the UK. 

Services Provided

• Card Manufacture
• Personalisaton
• Fulfilment
• Mailing and distribution

Project key successes

• Migration of the business within agreed timescales
• Personalisation of chip cards for a bespoke banking product
• Daily distribution of cards throughout the UK
• Providing true DR capability

Challenges

As part of the contract, we were required to provide full DR capability for card manufacture, personalisation, fulfilment and distribution.

As a new DR site had been nominated for this product, it required the successful coordination of multiple work-streams to purchase, build, test, stock and prove the various facets of the DR capability over a relatively short period of time.

Another challenge was to personalise a bespoke chip profile for a payment application only used by the Post Office.

How Thames met the challenge

Using the specifications supplied by EDS and during close discussions between the technical teams from both parties, we developed a new software suite to interpret the data files received, split the data according to distribution type, request type and carrier personalisation. Reporting of file processing and stock control was fully catered for within this software.

New software was also written to personalise the smart cards with the bespoke payment application details.

New data connections between EDS and Thames were established (at both the main site and DR site) and tested during the implementation phase.

A dedicated fulfilment team were used to ensure both the quality and the tight SLA’s were achieved time and time again.

The result

Migration, development and fulfilment was successfully completed within 20 weeks. We are now distributing on average 1,500 cards a day via the direct mail route and 24,000 cards via bulk distribution a month. DR capability is also tested on a yearly basis.

To download this case study as a PDF click here: POCA Case Study