In a fast changing world, effective data management differentiates efficient organizations from the rest. In the past, the National Social Security Fund (herafter, The Fund) struggled with data management. This process was manual and required a team of dedicated staff. Posting of contributions to member accounts witnessed delays and some cases, totally forgotten. The result was that in June 2014, The Fund had USD 30 million in suspense accounts. The Straight Through Process (STP) project for contribution collection was implemented to ensure that:

• contributions are instantly receipted, captured and posted to member statements;
• contributions are accompanied by a validated schedule to ensure proper accountability;
• member numbers are validated to control the incidence of new suspense accounts.

Data management changed in 2016. The Fund developed an application that interfaced directly with the banks and the employers. This enabled the employers to generate a schedule of contributions for members, pay bank directly to the bank, and electronically send matched paid contributions and schedule straight to The Fund. Currently, there are no amounts pending reconciliation and apportionment. A member’s statement can be updated within three hours.