ISO-8583 processing
Crimson is a flexible, reliable and highly scalable financial messaging solution. The software is ideally suited for systems where there is a need to send or receive messages using the international ISO-8583 standard. Crimson enables airtime sales directly through Automated Teller Machines and POS devices.
Crimson can receive and process authorisation messages. It will reserve funds on a supported back-end and match the authorisation with a corresponding settlement transaction. Crimson includes a flexible settlement processing subsystem used to reconcile authorisations with actual transactions and automatically reverses a transaction when it could not complete for any reason.
Crimson includes Java and CORBA APIs that makes it simple to integrate with back-end IN platforms. The API decodes the incoming messages and provides a standard interface for: Transaction authorisation, Balance Enquiry, Settlement Transactions and Financial Transactions (Debits, Credits and Transfers).
Crimson can be used as an intermediate switch that receives messages in one format and translates to another format, a front-end issuing switch for a legacy financial host or financial system, a complete card solution hosting card-based financial or loyalty accounts or an originating system for financial transactions, for example POS interfaces to acquiring switches or other financial payment systems.
How is Crimson used?
Crimson can be used in many ways. Here are some examples of how Crimson has been used before:
- Realtime airtime sales - Crimson is used to authorise pin-less top-ups for airtime sales. It performs all the necessary protocol conversations and handles the settlement of transactions.
- ATM interface for airtime sales - Crimson is an ISO-8583 front-end for Emerald. Automated Teller Machines request pin-less top-ups that is processed through Crimson.
- Card issuing - Crimson receives transactions from many sources. It applies certain rules to the transactions and authorises each transaction against the available balances of card-holders.
- Batch file processing - Crimson sources transactions from batch files in a specific format. It converts each entry in the file to an online transaction that it forwards to issuing authorities based on the routing rules. The system commits the answers to database and once all the transactions in the file has been completed, it writes a response file.
Transaction Manager for POS devices
Crimson makes it possible for merchants to receive payment transactions from Point-Of-Sales (POS) devices. When a customer presents a card for payment, the cashier swipes the card and enters the details (such as the amount) of the transaction into the POS device.
The POS devices submits the transaction to Crimson for processing. Once the transaction has been processed, Crimson forwards the result back to the POS. This scenario uses a device-specific transaction specification with customised message sources in Crimson.
Crimson processes the transaction based on the business rules and account balances stored in the system.
Transactions
Crimson delivers real-time messaging facilities from any device to any application, allowing integration of gift cards, loyalty programs, or any other business application.
Interconnecting switch
When you connect to several different parties and Crimson has the responsibility of translating messages from one format to another, it acts as an interconnecting switch.
It is possible to look at the content of messages and route it to a different destination based on certain criteria. The switch tracks each of the transactions, enabling bi-directional reconciliation.
ATM Airtime Sales
In the scenario sketched in the diagram below, a customer can top up any GSM prepaid mobile phone account from an ATM. The bank will communicate with the GSM operator (which might just be running Emerald) through a series of ISO-8583 messages that are processed by Crimson along the way.
Since GSM operators will probably use different protocols, they would normally not have any idea of what these messages mean. But Crimson understands and can fluently "speak"" all the languages, so it translates the instructions and the different messages for the operator and will in turn translate the money from the subscriber's bank account into airtime.
Robust architecture
Crimson runs on reliable Sun hardware and uses the unique features of Erlang OTP to ensure 24/7 service. The system uses a load-balanced, clustered architecture to distribute messaging load among different servers.
The servers communicate via a unique message bus that makes it possible to route messages between cities or between continents.
Should anything go wrong, dedicated supervisors will ensure that the affected part is recovered before it affects business. Should the unthinkable happen and one of the servers is lost, you can feel safe in the knowledge that there is always another one with all the data on it. A single machine failure will never bring down the system.
Why Crimson?
- ISO-8583 Compliance – Crimson is a robust financial message handling system. It has been tested in numerous implementations.
- Rapid Integration – Crimson solutions are based on an architecture that allows for rapid implementation of the base product Implementation times are shortened significantly.
- Generic Interface – The switch hides the complexities of the payment network to provide a single interface to the IN.
Technical Specifications
ISO-8583 Standards
Hardware Security Modules
MessagesCrimson supports the entire ISO-8583 (1987) standard and the mandatory parts of ISO-8583 (1993). The following, non-exhaustive list of message types are supported:
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ClusteringCrimson supports:
APIs and protocols
Protocol adaptors
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Supported SQL Databases
Server Operating Systems
Hardware
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