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AEG NewsletterFourth Quarter - 2020 | Issue #12 |
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“Despite the severity of the situation in Lebanon, AEG managed to go unaffected while keeping up full productivity and full commitment”
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Word from the CEO
2020 has been a tough year for individuals and organizations equally as both were hugely affected by the outbreak causing great death toll and forcing countries to lockdown. But it was especially hard on the Lebanese people as the pandemic was accompanied with a major economic crisis followed by a massive explosion that shook the whole country to its core. Despite the severity of the situation in Lebanon, AEG managed to go unaffected while keeping up full productivity and full commitment through the collective effort of our teams. We were able to serve our clients fully, meet our deadlines, and more importantly, we facilitated the work-from-home process for our clients through our tailored solutions. I hope that the end of 2020 takes all its misfortunes away and that 2021 brings you and your loved ones safety, happiness and prosperity. Dr. Mohamed Sadek – CEO and General Manager AEG Amid COVID-19 As of the first quarter of this year, COVID-19 started spreading globally confining people’s movement. When it was announced a pandemic and the planet went on lockdown, the priority was to save lives, not giving a second thought to anything else. However, inarguably, the lockdown disrupted businesses around the world and affected the global economy very severely. Amid all that, AEG sensed the need to step up and provide solutions that allow the banks to operate remotely as easily and normally as possible. AEG took on the mission to help minimize risk on its clients and indirectly play part in saving the world economy by sustaining the operations of the banking sector. Our teams were ready right from the beginning as we have always performed regular enhancements of our Business Continuity Plan. Everyone acted intuitively based on their prior training and lessons learned from their daily encounters and challenges. They could be of guidance to the clients throughout the hard times of logistic issues caused by curfews and lockdowns at the time. In fact, what our engineers could achieve during the last 3 quarters, despite the COVID outbreak, was really remarkable as for availability, continuous support, meeting deadlines, facilitating operations for the clients, implementing big projects, and making sure to take the risk of business disruption to the minimum. Today, after several months of dealing with the pandemic, our staff has become even more proactive than ever, prepared to operate in any situation, and well-equipped to find turnarounds to issues that might emerge. We can easily say that the COVID experience has taken our teams to the next level of proactivity, resourcefulness, risk management, and even crisis management. 2020 Overview Beirut Port Explosion AftermathThe most prominent incident this year in Lebanon, on top of the economic crisis and COVID-19, is the enormous explosion that stroke the Port of Beirut ramming the whole city, killing 204 people, injuring over 6,500, and leaving over 300,000 people homeless. Many businesses were affected, especially those that are close to the area of the explosion, including one of our main connectivity providers, whom the blast severely damaged their data center. Despite the sad news, our redundancy plan secured the connectivity of our clients and the transfer was seamless. Moreover, our emails were switched to a secondary domain as the primary was affected as well. This maintained a normal communication with our clients allowing them to open tickets, receive support and make requests. Within the given circumstances, we consider this year a success story as AEG has, once again, proven its resilience and reliability. This is, in fact, the promise AEG makes to its clients, and strives to meet every single time. AEG throughout 2020Apart from the tragedies we experienced this year, AEG was listed as CSP Assessor and Cyber Security Service Provider on SWIFT’s directories. Moreover, 3 new in-house-developed solutions were launched this year, one of which was self-attested and listed on SWIFT’s directory: AEG Universal Payment Confirmation. In fact, this solution is being very well received by our clients, with over 60 implementations so far, and counting. AEG-UPC automates the process of sending confirmations to the Tracker on the payment status, the process which is now mandated by SWIFT as of 22 November 2020. As for messaging formats, AEG developed MidSys3 and MT-ISO Converter, new solutions for MT to ISO 20022 conversion in compliance with CBPR+, as well as SWIFT’s new requirements. As for gpi, many of our clients went live this year with AEG gpi-PRO, a powerful solution to integrate gpi with the functionalities and services of the back-office system and helps the banks offer tracking capability to their clients. This solution is still expanding, and we are expecting more during next year. Furthermore, AEG SmartSMD has proven to be a life savior, as it has played a vital role during the total lockdown. It allows bank employees to work from home securely due to the efficient automated smart dispatching of the incoming SWIFT messages/transactions to the related department/personnel for processing. And hence, during the lockdown, banks were able to operate effortlessly. 2021 Outlook Perhaps no one has ever been this happy to say goodbye to a year like it is the case with 2020. We don’t know yet what 2021 will bring, but we keep our hopes high as always. For the time being, and as long as COVID-19 is prevalent, our social and PR activities remain on hold, and hence, we will not participate or organize any events, roadshows or exhibitions until further notice. Whereas on the business level, AEG will be active as ever. In fact, AEG is now in the middle of a partnership talk with an outstanding software provider that will be announced at a later stage. This partnership is intended to complement our portfolio of comprehensive solutions. Currently, our teams are working on 2 new solutions in collaboration with our new partner, which will have a great impact on system-related operations and security. These solutions are to be officially launched during the first quarter of 2021. Moreover, AEG’s Development Department is currently working on new tools and applications, some of which are dedicated to Arab and European countries, each addressing its corresponding area standards and requirements. As ever, AEG promises its clients state-of-the-art technologies and expertise, and always aspires to keep its promise. |
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In This Issue |
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01. AEG Amid COVID-19 |
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02. 2020 Overview |
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03. 2021 Outlook |
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04. 2020 Highlights |
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“Our teams were ready right from the beginning…”
“AEG has, once again, proven its resilience and reliability”
2020 Highlights ü 1 New Service Bureau site in France ü 100+ successful migrations to SWIFT release 7.4/7.5 ü 300+ Successful on-site interventions ü 7000+ Successful off-site interventions ü 150+ new contracts signed ü 3 new inhouse-developed solutions ü 5% growth in human resources |
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I would like to take the opportunity to wish you joyful
holidays and a happy new year.