Vision Plus

Say what you like about FDI's "Equasion" credit card processing platform, surely it's not so bad that after years of development and customisation it deserves to be moth balled and replaced it with a completely new system ? Well apparently so. Having acquired a competitor and their rival system, rumour has it that FDI are no longer enhancing their own platform, Equasion, and instead plan to move customers one by one to the new platform, Vision Plus.

But is Vision Plus any better than Equasion ? It depends who you ask. One client, having made the decision to deconvert from FDI, decided that purchasing a version of Vision Plus (prior to FDI's acquisition of the system) would be a lot easier than developing their own platform from scratch. And you can't argue with that.

We've seen it and we have to admit it seems leaner, slicker, and quicker. And whilst there isn't anywhere near as much functionality as FDI's Equasion system, Falcon and TRIAD (v7) are still available.

Of course what you really want to know is.. is it all "windows" driven ? Is it all "point and click" ? Has it, to get technical, got a GUI !?

Unfortunately, no.

Although one is planned for later this year ! Until then it's still essentially a set of "green screens" viewed via a terminal emulation program. Which makes it appear oddly familiar. As though it's merely a collection of new Equasion screens that you've stumbled across.

That said it's more action code driven than screen driven; you want to change someone's address ? Then from the customer services screen you type in the action code that kicks off the change of address. And what that action code actually is, (COA would seem logical), is completely defined by you as a financial organisation.

And Vision Plus users don't talk about SYS PRINs, they talk about ORGs and LOGOs. Which makes it sound a little like something out of Lord of the Rings.

Other clients rather like the way they can choose when they want to "cycle" - if you want to kick of "nightly update" at 11am in the morning, that's not a problem on Vision Plus. Useful, if you happen to live in a part of the world where 11am over here, is actually late evening. That alone was enough to make one FDI client make the jump.

At the time of writing FDI have two new start-ups on the platform, and one client set to go through conversion. Sooner or later your organisation might ask you whether it's worth making the move. And when that happens, you might need some assistance. Contact us here.