After the successful introduction of the ‘SNS Banking’ app, SNS REAAL’s own development department rolled out two more brand new variant apps, ‘ASN Banking’ and ‘RegioBank’.  Service2Media’s M2Active platform was deployed for the development and management of these apps.

In 2012, Service2Media developed the ‘SNS Banking’ app for SNS REAAL.  Following this, a mobile app development and management infrastructure was implemented based on Service2Media’s App Lifecycle Platform – M2Active. The purpose of this development environment was to enable SNS REAAL to develop and manage its own cross-platform apps, in a phased approach. Under the motto ‘show, do together, do yourself’, Service2Media withdrew in a step-wise and controlled manner, leaving the development environment fully in the hands of SNS REAAL. Today, a year after the introduction of the first SNS Banking app, this has been realized. The development infrastructure is staffed by trained and certified SNS REAAL employees, with Service2Media merely providing coaching.

“We see the trend that more large businesses are choosing a platform in order to develop apps themselves,” says Geert Kolthof, CEO of Service2Media. “Our enterprise grade platform, M2Active, was designed to integrate seamlessly with existing, often complex IT processes within companies. This creates an efficient and future-proof method for making apps, in which the high quality technology of the Service2Media platform is used to build knowledge in-house and effectively secure and utilize this knowledge within the company.”

An important principle in the design of the ‘SNS Banking’ app is that it serves as a basis for similar apps for SNS REAAL’s subsidiary brands. It is therefore, a generic ‘multi-label’ app that can be converted to match the design, branding, look-and-feel and any additional functional requirements of the subsidiaries.  The first two apps to have benefited from this are the apps of SNS REAAL’s subsidiaries, ASN and RegioBank. These apps are already available in the app stores.

Service2Media’s M2Active platform enables SNS REAAL to develop apps that are suitable for deploying to multiple mobile operating systems and devices. Use is made of only one source code, which makes the development process a lot faster, simpler and more robust than developing applications for each operating system separately. Another benefit to this approach is that complex components such as security and back-end integration can be re-used, and are therefore valuable components for the rapid development of future apps.

Service2Media has completely revamped the architecture of its M2Active Push Service, adjusting it to meet the rapidly growing number of users. The Push Service now uses clustered and balanced NoSql Cassandra databases – known from Facebook – with an extremely high performance, enabling millions of push messages to be processed and sent per minute. The cloud service offers powerful and uniform access to the push networks of Google, Apple, Microsoft and BlackBerry, which would otherwise all have to be controlled separately.

The M2Active Push Service enables mobile app developers to send notification messages to the users of their app, even when the app is not active. By using configurable filters, the developer can address specific groups of app users (right down to the individual level). Equally important, these filters are used to record user preferences: the user can choose whether or not to receive messages. As a result, the messages that are sent match the personal interests and context of the user. M2Active Push has extensive reporting capabilities. It is even possible to measure the response to a specific push action. Field data shows that the number of times an app is opened within one minute of the push message being sent, can amount to 10% of the daily volume, and in the hours thereafter up to 25% of the daily volume.

There are countless uses for Push technology. It is a personal and less intrusive alternative to SMS that encourages direct action. For instance, an airline can send a message to passengers on a particular flight, informing them that they can check in. A news app can bring important news directly to the attention of users. A bank can send individual users information on their balance, a department store can show what they have on special offer, and the IT department of a large company can announce that its email server is off line.

Privacy

Security and privacy are extremely important aspects of the M2Active Push Service. The service is hosted in the Netherlands by Service2Media, and its use falls within Dutch jurisdiction. No personal data is stored whatsoever. The system only stores the minimal amount of data needed to operate the service. The data cannot be traced to individuals. Additionally, data is transmitted from the customer’s systems without being processed or stored. All communication with the back-end systems is filtered by IP address, and sent encrypted.

The system is accessible via a web portal where apps can be configured and messages prepared. The full functionality of M2Active Push for back-end systems and enterprise applications is accessible via REST APIs.

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