AVOID NON-COMPLIANCE, FINANCIAL PENALTIES AND REPUTATIONAL RISK BY INVESTING IN THE

Non-compliance as a result of failure to submit the correct reports in a timely manner can result in financial penalties, reputational risk and an onerous burden on management to improve the reporting process.

New regulations continuously introduced by SARS and the SARB has placed an ongoing burden on financial institutions, most of whom are already struggling to cope with the existing workload caused by the various types of regulatory reporting and compliance introduced in recent years. We are seeing an increase in width, depth and frequency of reportable information required by SARS, and we expect this to continue, with more reports on more aspects at more regular intervals being the trend. Synthesis’ txstream product is your solution to this regulatory burden.

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Business Value

A COMPLETE REPORTING SOLUTION THAT IS COST-EFFECTIVE

THE SOLUTION
The txstream product is a complete reporting solution that is cost-effective, easy to use and implement, and allows for full compliance across all current and future SARS requirements (scalable) eliminating the need for additional resources and cost from a client perspective. Companies don’t need a team of in-house developers to support the solution as the Synthesis’ team consists of dedicated individuals keeping abreast with any changes that SARS releases.

HOW IT WORKS
Synthesis Software Technologies in its endeavour to streamline the internal process for financial institutions have developed a product suite for SARS namely txstream, which allows for the extraction of data (from source), validation of data quality, and packaging into the correct format of SARS formatted flat files. In addition the txstream suite provides a set of reports giving insight into data quality (which can drive clean-up processes) as well as the data that is submitted to SARS. The txstream suite consists of the following modules that can either be purchased individually (add on components) or collectively (as a package).

The solution supports the following submission types

IT3(b) certificates report interest income from investments, rental income, dividends, royalties and other income that was due, paid or accrued to account holders. IT3(b) also provides a mechanism for withholding on interest to be reported.

IT3(c) certificates report payments like proceeds from the sale of unit trusts and other financial instruments.

IT3(e) certificates report income received by or accrued to clients from the sale or shipment of livestock, produce, timber, ores, minerals and precious stones. Bonuses and interest paid or accrued to the members of co-operative societies or companies are also be reported on an IT3(e) certificate.

IT3(s) allows financial institutions to report on tax free savings and investment accounts held by themselves. Current legislation on these accounts put a number of restrictions on the amounts that can be invested into these accounts (from an annual as well as lifetime perspective), and SARS require the reports to ensure investors do not breach these limits by investing across different financial institutions.

Under the model 1 IGA concluded between South Africa and the USA, South African financial institutions need to report relevant information to SARS, who will in turn report through to the IRS. It is expected that the FATCA reporting specifications published by SARS will change in format and detail as FATCA evolves, with numerous updates expected over the course of the next few years. Under CRS you are required to identify account holders’ tax residence, and if necessary report to SARS – who will exchange information with multiple tax authorities.

Dividends Tax is a tax imposed on shareholders on receipt of dividends. Dividends Withholding Tax is a tax that needs to be withheld by the company paying the dividend or by a regulated intermediary, and not the person liable for the tax (i.e. the beneficial owner of the dividend). The DWT submission type allows for the reporting of dividend information.

The Medical Scheme Contributions report allows institutions to report on member demographic details, as well as details related to the contributions made by members as mandated by SARS.

The Insurance Scheme Payments report allows institutions to report on member demographic details, as well as details related to the contributions of members as mandated by SARS.

SARS provides a mechanism for the reporting of PAYE information (IT3(a) and IRP5).

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Who Needs to Report

The Benefits

A COMPLETE REPORTING SOLUTION THAT IS COST-EFFECTIVE

ELIMINATES FINANCIAL PENALTIES AND REPUTATIONAL RISK

Assists with preventing late or incorrect submissions which could result in both financial penalties and reputational risk.

REMOVES THE BURDEN OF FORMULATING YOUR OWN REPORTING TO SARS

The txstream Solution allows the business to focus on core business operations and removes the burden of formulating regulatory reports to the SARS. In addition, this allows for key resources locked up by the reporting process to be redeployed to more strategic areas of the business.

FULL AUTOMATION

Full automation of the file generation and validation process. Very limited human intervention required to generate files and reports, saving the organisation on resource costs.

ASSURANCE AND COMPLIANCE

Assurance that your data meets high standards.

INSTANT SARS KNOWLEDGE

Synthesis keeps abreast of all changes to all the current and new regulation requirements and makes sure that these changes are updated to the solution. There is instant SARS related knowledge and intelligence given to business where they would otherwise have to gain it themselves by either learning it from documentation or hiring someone with the knowledge.

CONTINUOUS DATA VALIDATION AND INSIGHT INTO YOUR DATA QUALITY

Continuous data validation and insight into data quality provides peace of mind that your data is clean and ready for the next submission at any time of the year, as opposed to only becoming aware of this when it is too late. Gain control over the quality of your data.

SIMPLICITY

Simplifies the management of complex domain data tables.

Product Features

A COMPLETE REPORTING SOLUTION THAT IS COST EFFECTIVE

COLLATION OF THE REPORTABLE DATA

Collation of the reportable data from disparate systems; i.e. provides a single view of a client.

VALIDATION OF THE REPORTABLE INFO AS PER THE SARS SPECIFICATION

Capable of validation on a per entry level and/or provide a report of all invalid entries.
Can be used as a standalone tool to validate SARS formatted files.

APPLICATION OF SARS SPECIFIED DATA WORKAROUNDS TO DATA

As per the validation tool, a workaround report is generated that describes the “invalid field” values and the value to which they were altered.

GENERATION OF SARS FILES

Generation of SARS formatted flat files. Generation of reports pertaining to the generated files:

Report containing SARS submitted data in a “human readable” format.
Report summary containing the total number of entries and various other aggregated information points submitted to SARS.
Reports and charts showing data quality – this can be distributed via email to a distribution list.

Tech Features

FAST

Our experience in building high performance validation and rule engines means that we can process workloads in hours that would otherwise have taken days.

INTEROPERABLE

The server application is implemented in Java, which means that it is convenient to deploy on Windows, Linux, Macintosh or cloud environments.
The front end is built in HTML 5 and is supported by all the leading modern browsers. Interacting with the system can be done in the most appropriate way for the context. The UI is responsive to mobile form factors.
Our light-weight data flow layer means that we can integrate the solution with various sources of data. Common sources of data are SQL, CSV and Excel.

SCALABLE

Our solution is designed to work on the most modest of hardware for small data sets and scale up linearly for big data sets.
Our specification encoding engine means that we can scale easily to deal with the vast number of specification types released by SARS and all the versions that exist for each specification. The same system supports multiple SARS specifications, each at different versions, comfortably in one instance.

CLOUD BASED

For clients that do not have local infrastructure or in cases where volumes of data are so low that setting up local infrastructure doesn’t make sense, we offer cloud hosted solutions.
You would interact with the system by uploading the data for the submission via the website (direct integration scenarios are also possible) and the system would validate and produce the output file on the cloud.

HIGH PERFORMANCE ENGINES

We leverage the best technologies to squeeze out maximum performance from the available hardware in a manner that is fit-for-purpose in the regulatory reporting environment.
Certain sections of the system leverage industry-standard technologies because they are proven, optimised and dependable.
Other sections of the system are custom built to meet the specific requirements of the regulatory compliance and reporting environment. This means that we can really maximise the benefit of the technology in a way that makes sense in the context.
We prefer this approach over an expensive solution using generalised components that introduce overheads for features that are not relevant in this context.

EXTENSIBLE

The specification encoding engine allows client-specific modifications to be made to the SARS specifications without requiring a change being made to the software system. This means that we can extract maximum benefit from client data without long and complicated software modifications.
The integration layer contains many generic data manipulation components that can be configured to achieve complex data integration and manipulation (ETL) requirements.
The data flow layer is easily extensible with components where you can add in custom code and scripts without needing to recompile the system. If a custom task type is required in the data flow layer, it can easily be developed using our API and added onto the system. We never need to see the source code for that task.

STANDARD CONNECTORS

Our system can integrate with SQL, CSV and Excel out the box. This makes data integration easy. The last mile of integration (ETL) can be done within the data flow system, meaning that the source systems do not need to be modified.
If we come across common data integration requirements across clients, we can easily add support in future for other standard data formats / systems.
Our user management and security integrates with Active Directory so it makes management of users and permissions easy.

BIG DATA

Our system can comfortably support data sets in excess of 5 Million account holders. This might translate into roughly 15 Million records of data. We have pushed it in production beyond this.
The system behaves linearly as the volume of data scales. This means that the performance rate at 10 000 Account Holders is the same as at 1 Million Account Holders. The same solution will be able to meet the demands of your growing customer base.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I only purchase one module of the txstream solution?

Yes, modules can be purchased separately. However, as more modules are licensed the cost per module decreases significantly.

If I already have purchased a module can I add on another reporting type?

Yes, many of our clients approach us with an urgent requirement to report on one type of data only. However, once the benefits of using the software becomes apparent, we typically get approached with a request to add on additional modules. In general, we can offer better pricing if multiple modules are purchased at once however, since this allows us to reduce overheads.

We already have an internally developed solution for SARS reporting. Why should we use txstream?

SARS regularly introduces changes to their BRS documents. There are consistent changes to the amount (and format) of fields that need to be reported on, and new submission types are regularly being added. Typically, we find that valuable resources are being tied up for weeks at a time to make and test changes and ensure that the reports that worked 6 months or a year ago still work. Often, we find that the only person that really understood the process has moved on to a new company, and new resources need to be pulled away from more critical functions as short term stop gaps. The internal solutions used are often also quite tactical in nature as opposed to strategic and do just enough to get a “rough” submission out in time. By making use of txstream you will be able to free up resources to perform other (higher valueadd) functions, remove key man dependence, and leverage off of additional features and benefits we build into our software, for example data quality reports, clean-up tools, and other insights into data.

What are the different deployment options?

We have 2 options when it comes to deployment:

1) Cloud based – this is typically used by smaller institutions where infrastructure is a concern.

2) Onsite – This is typically used by larger institutions, and/or where infrastructure is not a concern.

How many users are licensed to make use of the solution?

Our license model works on a tiered basis based on number of lines reportable as opposed to amount of users. This means that you can have as many users as you need connected to the system at any time.

How many days do you require to implement the solution?

This varies on a case by case basis and is typically anywhere between 2 and 10 days per module, depending on the complexity of the integration required. As part of our implementation process we schedule time with the client to better understand their integration requirements, in order for us to provide a more accurate estimate of the time required to integrate.

I have no FATCA reportable clients, but I do have a GIN number. Do I still need to report?

Yes, SARS has clarified their stance on this issue in the latest guidance notes. In cases where an institution is identified as needing to report but there are no reportable clients, an empty (nil) report still has to be submitted. The txstream software has the ability to generate these “nil” reports. The pricing for the FATCA module is also significantly reduced in cases where clients just need to issue “nil” reports.

Some reporting types only need to be submitted once every few months. Should we switch off the software?

Too often regulatory reporting is treated as an event rather than a process. This leads to a mad dash closer to the date of submission, and a lot of added stress and frustration. Invariably quality gets compromised. Often a change in either the SARS specifications or your own internal data structures leaves you in a compromised position and too little time to produce a report of any real value. For this reason, we make use of the principles of continuous integration, not just in our development process, but also as part of our product features. We believe that providing you with continuous insight into your data quality throughout the year will allow you to manage any significant changes as they occur, rather than a few months down the line. Data clean-up can then also be run as a continuous process rather than a suicidal race toward a deadline that cannot be moved.

Is there a limit on the amount of records?

No. Our pricing is based on a tiered model and can be provided on request. This allows us to accommodate smaller as well as larger institutions, who have very different performance, support, and deployment considerations. Technically, we have pushed the system beyond 25 Million records of data (approximately 8 Million Account Holders) and the system scales linearly up to and beyond that point.

How will you integrate into our systems?

We typically have 2 models of data integration, and the choice depends on client requirements:

1) Tight – with tight integration, we would meet with a business analyst to understand the data and how it is housed. We would then either develop or re-use tools that allows us access to the data directly (i.e. specific API’s, SQL, etc.).

2) Loose – with loose integration, clients prefer to keep control over their source data and only expose us to the data required for submissions. I.e. a csv report or sql view can be developed by the client which we can then make use of the source required data. We can provide some sample formats, or alternatively the client can make use of a format that they have readily available.

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Let’s Get in Touch

PLEASE CONTACT US IN ONE OF THE FOLLOWING WAYS.

SALES: 087 654 3300

Melrose Arch, No 3 Melrose Boulevard, 4th Floor, Unit 59a

txstream is a licensed product of Synthesis Software Technologies

Synthesis Software Technologies, founded in 1997, offers specialised software development, consulting and integration services and technology-based product solutions to banking and financial institutions in South Africa and other emerging markets.

Synthesis Software Technologies (Pty) Ltd
Melrose Arch, No 3 Melrose Boulevard, 4th Floor, Unit 59a
Tel: 087-654-3300