Transforming card scheme compliance with Kajo
An Interview With Thomas Carrara Representing the Scheme and Operational Compliance Team at Viseca
We had the pleasure of interviewing Thomas Carrara, representing the Scheme and Operational Compliance Team at Viseca in Switzerland. The team has 20 years of combined experience in various roles and responsibilities in the payment industry. Viseca is one of the leading card issuers (debit and credit cards) and issuing service providers for Kantonalbanken, Raiffeisen Group, Migrosbank, Bank Cler and several regional banks.
How is the scheme compliance process organised at Viseca?
As a licensee of Mastercard & Visa, Viseca has a dedicated team called Scheme & Operational Compliance, taking care of both scheme compliance and operational compliance.
As the Scheme and Operational Compliance team, we are the second line of defence. One of our primary responsibilities involves analysing newly announced scheme rules and updates and adjustments to the existing rules, distributing them to all relevant stakeholders (internal & external) and supporting them in implementing the changes to stay compliant.
What challenges did you have in managing the scheme compliance process?
One of the biggest challenges was the workload. The process in place consisted of many manual steps. We had to download the announcements from individual scheme portals, review them one by one, upload them to other sharing platforms to distribute them to relevant stakeholders and keep track of the progress in a spreadsheet. The manual process, the steadily increasing number of announcements published by the schemes, involving more and more stakeholders due to the ever-expanding complexity of all the topics, resulted in a massive workload for the team.
Since the scheme announcements are a crucial part of the Mastercard and Visa rules and regulations, which we need to be compliant with as a licensee, one of our main responsibilities and objectives is continuous stakeholder education. As a significant amount of our working hours was spent with administrative work, too many hours really, we realised that being able to provide the service we want and need to provide to all the involved stakeholders as well as fulfilling our various other tasks would soon be virtually impossible in the current setup. We also saw no potential to improve the existing process further and came to the conclusion that we need to scan the market for a new solution that fits all our needs. Primarily means less manual labour for the team and, ideally, an all-in-one solution.
Why did you decide to use Kajo?
We saw the need to improve the manual work we had to do as a team, especially since other topics required our attention and time.
When we were presented with the opportunity to get Kajo, we realised that with Kajo, we would be able to maintain the workforce in the team and still manage the increasing workload. We were faced with either automating the processes with Kajo or adding additional FTEs to the team, as the workload would have been no longer manageable.
What processes & tools were in place before Kajo? And how did Kajo improve the process?
Before Kajo, we had two processes and tools for internal stakeholders and partner banks.
For internal stakeholders, we misused the JIRA board. However, as JIRA is a generic issue-tracking tool, the setup was not tailored and well-suited to the scheme compliance process. For the partner banks, we used a file-sharing portal to send them the PDFs with additional files and maintained an Excel spreadsheet for the overview. As a result, we had to keep two separate processes and tools, which was very labour-intensive.
Now, with Kajo, we manage everything in one place. Internally, Kajo is clearly positioned as a scheme compliance management tool, and everyone who is a stakeholder uses Kajo for this process. For our partner banks, we have integrated Kajo into the service portal using the Kajo sync ability with ServiceNow. Therefore, we can exchange with them via Kajo and receive their feedback in Kajo. This has made our lives much easier as we can now manage internal and external stakeholders in Kajo.
Another advantage of Kajo is the managed service. Rivero takes care of many administrative parts: Downloading and reviewing the new scheme announcements, uploading them to Kajo, providing guidance on each bulletin, and identifying the right stakeholders for each announcement. We just need to review and confirm the assigned stakeholders. The administrative part alone has been a considerable workload relief for us.
What was your first impression of Kajo?
If you have been a scheme compliance manager for a while, you can quickly realise that the people behind Kajo know and understand this process and that knowledge is mirrored in the product. The product is clean and tidy. You don’t have things you do not need.
The interface is user-friendly and easy to work with, making onboarding easy.
Another aspect of Kajo that we would like to highlight is the Kajo Expert Guidance provided by Rivero Scheme Compliance Experts. We found this very helpful and valuable in interpreting and understanding what is requested by the schemes.
How was the user onboarding & training for Kajo?
All we did for user onboarding was to provide the stakeholders with a short and straightforward manual, and that was it. Onboarding people to Kajo went very smoothly for two reasons:
Kajo has a user-friendly interface, which makes it very easy to use, and therefore, no training is required.
Kajo is specifically designed for the scheme compliance process, and therefore, there is not much one can do there. This simplicity is an excellent advantage as it makes Kajo straightforward and does not raise many questions.
What do you appreciate the most about Kajo?
With Kajo, we can focus our time and expertise on the actual work rather than the admin part of the process, which takes up so much time. In addition, having the Kajo Expert Guidance has been very helpful for us. It is always valuable to read the interpretation of other experts to see if we have the same understanding of a topic, and Kajo Expert Guidance provides us with that.
How was your experience working with Rivero?
It’s been a great experience working with Rivero. The response time is very short. If we have ideas for product improvement, the product owner gladly takes them to the backlog to be implemented without additional costs. This is very different from the usual change request model in our industry. Having worked with several partners and suppliers, Rivero's customer orientation and customer-focused approach is very refreshing.
What would you say to other businesses facing the same challenges in the scheme compliance process?
We have been lucky enough to recommend Kajo & Rivero as a partner to several banks. And if I want to put it in one sentence, I would say: Just go for it. Kajo will make your life much easier, as simple as that. Any player working in the payment industry will significantly benefit from using Kajo.
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