Open Square developed Pact as the result of a long journey in financial services IT. A journey which began with a disenchantment with current systems provision and a deep belief that much better could be done.

Agreements, agreements everywhere

Pact is founded upon the insight that the whole business of financial services can be expressed in terms of agreements - whether formal contracts or informal arrangements.

Consider the following:
• Policy contracts
• Commission agreements
• Reinsurance treaties
• Bank collection arrangements
• Claims settlements

All are examples of agreements. Even the right of a company to transact business at all is the subject of a regulatory agreement with the authorities.

Modeling agreements

Open Square analysed these agreements to understand their intrinsic nature and to see the patterns going on. The result is Pact. First of all, Pact provides a conceptual model for mapping agreements. Using an easy-to-learn graphical notation, product actuaries and business analysts can visualise the agreements at work in an organisation. The Pact Designer Workbench is the product that facilitates this. Expressing agreements in this formal manner benefits communication, training, and the specifying of systems requirements.

Using agreements

Pact, however, is much more than just a drawing tool. Imagine a back office processing system capable of handling all the foundational elements of agreements. Such a system, when sent any agreement in XML form, would be able to support and administer it, without specific coding. The advantages would be enormous! Such a system could become a policy admin system, a commissions system, claims or billing system - all without reprogramming. Furthermore it could handle new sorts of agreements, such as product launches, just as easily. Pact is that system.

Hooking it all together

Innovation is great, but few organisations have the luxury of starting 'from scratch' to fully utilise new technology. With Pact the benefits can be realised today - alongside existing systems. Open Square has worked hard to ensure that Pact can slot in easily alongside older technology and other standards. Pact is able to "talk" to the US ACORD and UK ORIGO standards, and with a simple mapping exercise, to any other XML form. A special Pact Adapter framework provides a means of turning Pact requests into triggers for processing in legacy systems.