Functional User Guides
Sunday, November 6, 2016
ATM & POS Interface - T24
Functional Overview
1. ATM / POS Functionality
ATM Automated Teller Machine, widely used by consumers to perform financial transactions such as
Cash Withdrawals, Cash Deposits, Cheque Book Request, Bill payments, Mobile Recharges, Funds
Transfer between Accounts & non-financial transactions such as Account Balance Enquiry, Mini
Statements Request , Account Statement Request, Cheque Book Requests etc.,
POS Point of Sale, this type of transaction is classified into two
1. Card present (Transactions performed over a physical machine)
2. Card not present (Online Purchase)
All the mentioned transaction communicates directly to the core banking application (here it is T24).
ISO8583 is the format which is opted by the financial institutions to read the financial / non-financial
transaction messages that is sent via switches.
Note: The transaction types enabled in an ATM / POS machine differs from financial institutions based on
their business necessity.
2. Functionality in T24
ATM interface is a middle layer that resides between Switch(ATM) and T24(Host), the middle layer is
connected to the application server with a dedicate port, which listens for the incoming ISO messages
from the interface. The incoming message is then converted to T24 readable format (OFS - Open
Financial Service) to process the message. Either success / failure the response will be sent back to the
switch in the same manner as it received. The ISO messages are transmitted from the Switch to T24 via
TCP/IP.
Application Server can be configured for listening ISO messages on required number of ports (this is
decided based on the usage volume of ATM/POS). Application servers supported by T24 ATM Interface.
TC Server
Jboss
Websphere
Weblogic
3. How ATM / POS Works?
When a customer uses an ATM / POS terminal connected to the switch server, the switch sends a
message to T24. Depending upon the message and various functions, accounting entries are generated
in T24 and response message is sent either with an error or successful details back to the ATM Interface.
Once the interface is started, the parameters required for the Interface are read from the mapping
tables. Java Listener listens to a port where ATM Switch will be sending the ISO8583 messages. Once the
raw ISO8583 message is read from the port, ATM Interface converts this raw ISO message into OFS
message format and sends it to T24, for the execution of corresponding transaction. After the
transaction has been completed at T24, the response messages are formatted in ISO8583 format and
sent back to ATM Switch.
The below picture is a generic demonstration of ATM functional flow in T24.
The below picture is a generic flow chart for ISO message processing in T24
4. How to do ATM testing
To test an ATM interfaces, it is must to know about ISO messages & their respective data elements
in the message, Parameter setup in T24.
A. ISO Messages
As mentioned ISO8583 is the format where the switch exchanges the communication of the
transactions to the host (Core Banking System) made by a card. T24 supports ISO 8583:87 and ISO
8583:93 versions only, where all mentioned financial / non-financial transaction are supported by both
the versions. ISO messages are made of three parts
Message type indicator (MTI)
The first 4 characters after header message is called MTI, indicates of what type of message either Online
or Offline which defines how message should flow to the system.
Online – transaction that happens on real time which hits the host
Offline – transaction that hits the host after certain interval of time
Example:
0800 >> Request for network sign on
0810 >> Response for network sign on
0200 >> Online request for a financial transaction
0210 >> Online response for a financial transaction
0220 >> Offline request for a financial transaction
0221 >> Financial transactions repeat
0230 >> Offline response for a financial transaction
0420 >> Reversal request
0421 >> Reversal repeat
0430 >> Reversal response
One or more bitmaps indicating data elements like Transaction Date / Amount / Base Currency /
Account Currency / Card data / ATM ID / ATM Location / Country Code
Reserved fields, Data elements indicating data elements Debit Account Number / Bank
Institution ID / Credit Account No / Not used fields
Sample ISO Message:
ISO0160000700200B23CE4812EB080180000000014000004012000000000530716021211204802929511
23470212201002126011826051020514745375576280500007084=20102211629092800000D13657222
222000000 IO11129 INFICATT TONTON JB250 634012NETWNETW-
003013BNK NETW10100P116340800000009100131441350& 0000200350! BD00328
00000000000005307160000000000000000000634 TT T T00000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000
The below table indicates the data elements & their values in each position
Positio
Name Type Mandatory
n
1 Bit Map b 64Bit True
3 Processing code n6 True
4 Amount, transaction n 12 True
7 Transmission date & time n 10 True
11 Systems trace audit number n6 True
12 Time, local transaction (hhmmss) n6 True
13 Date, Local transaction (MMdd) n4 True
14 Date, Expiration n4 True
15 Date, Settlement n4 False
17 Date, capture n4 True
18 Merchant type n4 True
19 Acquiring institution country code n3 True
22 Point of service entry mode n3 True
25 Point of service condition code n2 True
27 Authorizing identification response length n1 False
32 Acquiring institution identification code n ..11 True
35 Track 2 data z ..37 True
37 Retrieval reference number an 12 True
38 Authorization identification response an 6 True
39 Response code an 2 True
41 Card acceptor terminal identification ans 16 True
42 Card acceptor identification code ans 15 False
43 Card acceptor name/location ans 40 True
44 Additional response data an ..25 True
48 Additional data – private an …999 False
49 Currency code, transaction a3 True
60 Reserved national an …999 True
61 Reserved Private ans …999 True
63 Reserved Private ans …999 False
70 Network management Information code n3 False
90 Original data elements n 42 False
95 Replacement amounts n 42 False
100 Receiving institution identification code n ..11 True
102 Account identification 1 ans ..28 True
103 Account identification 2 ans ..28 False
121 Reserved for private use ans …999 False
123 Reserved for private use ans …999 False
125 Reserved for private use ans …999 False
126 Reserved for private use ans …999 True
ATM Parameterization
The following are the files that are configured in T24 to process the ISO messages
[Link] >> The file stores the details about user name for the ATM to access T24 application,
Bank Institution ID, ISO version, Processing Code, Mapping filed for unique ID of transaction, Network ID
(VISA/Master), Default ATM / POS branch & ATM / POS bin numbers.
[Link] >> This file store the details about the ATM machines belonging to which branch /
location, type of machine (CDM only / ATM & CDM / ATM only), corresponding ATM GL account
numbers.
[Link] >> This file stores the details about receivable and payable accounts for visa/master card
transactions done via ATM only. Id of each record is formed based on the Acquirer bin of other banks or
first 6 digits of PAN No or Network numbers.
[Link] >> This file is similar to [Link] where details about the receivable and
payable accounts for visa/master card transactions done via POS only. Id of each record is formed based
on the Acquirer bin of other banks or first 6 digits of PAN No or Network numbers.
[Link] >> This file stores charges for all transactions.
[Link] >> This files gets updated once the details / setup is verified in [Link]
[Link] >> This files stores the values whether the multiple entries to be raised for the
transaction (charges separately). This records defined here should be internally used in [Link]
[Link] >> This file stores the details about what sort of response to be sent to the switch
for the processed transactions.
Example:
Message.1: Invalid Account Response Code.1: 76, means the host will respond with “76”, as response
code for the failure transactions due to invalid accounts.
[Link] >> this files stores the details about the values that to be consider for processing the
transaction. Mapping records for each transaction, which indicates what application, version to be used
to raise accounting entries.
5. Challenges faced
Connection establishment between the SWITCH and application server
T24 fails to read the messages from the application server queue, configuration changes to
recognize the incoming messages (Ex: Messages available in MQ, but T24 fails to process it)
Transaction processing fails due connection timeout between the SWITCH & application server
(Timeout settings that need to be handled at SWITCH, application server & the host T24)
Parameter Setup missing in T24
Transaction processing per minute, if throughput of transaction is more in number, TOT of each
transactions increases (performance measures)
6. Mitigate Challenges
Monitoring the listener port & the sender port configurations frequently
Monitoring the queue depth frequently & clearing the messages from the queue if by taking
backup of the data in the queue
Revisit the above mentioned parameter setup related to ATM in T24
Get the details from the bank about their ATM usage transactions per day & accordingly
configuration changes needs to be setup at application server level (performance testing)
Add ATM matrix for better coverage
Sample test cases that to be covered
7. Frequently faced defects
Consideration of locked (blocked) amounts in the account
o Example:
Wrong balance is shown to the customers when balance enquiry transaction is
performed
Raising wrong account entries in case of insufficient balances
Consideration of other branch customer accounts and type of account for financial transactions
o Example:
Customer accounts are differentiated based on which branch they belong, so
frequent failure happens due to other branch accounts (apart from Main Brach)
Financial transaction failing for Savings account but working for current account
Incorrect mapping of response code which is sent back to the SWITCH
o Example:
Consider that the SWITCH expects “00” response code for any successful
transaction, but instead some other code is sent, in this case the SWITCH
considers the transaction as failure but the customer account would have been
debited
Off us transaction failures
o Example:
Cash withdrawal from other financial institutions that does not use T24 ATM
interfaces
Cash withdrawal using other financial institutions card / credit card in SWITCH
that is integrated with T24 ATM Interface
View Mini statement
o Example:
Failure happens due to length of the transaction description of an account
When no transactions are available in an account
Transactional charges / fees not debited from the account
o Example:
Transaction fee which supposed to be collected for the financial transaction is
not debited from the customer account, due to incorrect charge setup and also
the logic of handling debit entries for fee transactional charges
Void financial transactions
o Example:
Transactions that supposed to be reversed are not exactly reversed in the
account, this mostly happens in case of transaction time out.
Note:
Without a physical ATM / Simulator, T24 ATM Interface can be tested by placing the incoming ISO
message in the application server or post the ISO message via telnet.
Performance of the T24 ATM interface can be tested by sending ISO messages as a bunch to the
application server queue.
