Banco BICSA

An Automatic and Reliable Way to Integrate Data Between IBM DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server

Founded in 1976 in Panama and headquartered in Costa Rica, Banco BICSA (Banco Internacional de Costa Rica) provides financial services through six US and Central American offices located in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Miami, Nicaragua and Panama. With an initial capital of US$2.5 million, Banco BICSA was founded to provide commercial financing services to corporate accounts. Today Banco BICSA boasts capital of US$78.9 million. At its inception, Banco BICSA selected Panama as its first office due to favorable local legislation, the presence of a strong and active financial center and outstanding opportunities presented by initiatives such as the Central American Common Market. Banco BICSA’s high standing in Panama today is a reflection of their strong professionalism and important position among Panamanian banks with foreign licenses. Banco BICSA in Panama also provides correspondent bank services for Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.

Banco BICSA in Panama established a large set of data on IBM DB2 on its IBM i. This data is a collection of financial transactions, individual and corporate account information and other business information. However, its reporting and analysis applications reside on its Microsoft SQL Server 2005 system. Banco BICSA needed to establish an automatic and reliable way to integrate data between its IBM i and Microsoft database, in order to provide rapid, reliable and accurate data to its business intelligence systems. The bank had originally established a manual text retrieval system that was dependent on staff resources, training and availability for efficient data integration. At its peak transaction times, this process turned out to be time-consuming and labor-intensive. The bank was concerned about providing a high level of accuracy and user satisfaction, while keeping control of the costs involved in this manual process.