During the foundational era of his 35-year digital career, Senior IT Project Manager Mark Whitfield worked as a Programmer and Lead Analyst at The Software Partnership (acquired by Deluxe Data International in 1994).
Between 1990 and 1995, he developed core software frameworks and back-end integration modules for early electronic desktop and telephonic banking systems.
The comprehensive breakdown of his project work from this era is grouped below:
1. Project: sp/ARCHITECT-BANK Core Framework Development
- Year: 1990 – 1995
- Location: Norton House, Crowngate, and Wingate House, Northway, Runcorn, Cheshire, UK
- Technology: Tandem Computers Mainframe architectures (now HPE NonStop), Tandem Guardian O/S Tools (PATHWAY, PATHMAKER, ENSCRIBE, EMS, INSPECT, SPOOLCOM), and CONTROL for strict software version management.
- IT Languages: NonStop SQL, COBOL85, TACL, and SCOBOL (Screen COBOL for 6530 character-cell block-mode “green screen” terminal emulations).
- Customer: Multiple European and UK blue-chip banks, including TSB, Bank of Scotland, and Rabobank.
- Project Overview: Researching, configuring, and upgrading a standard electronic corporate banking software application. The project focused on building multi-tenant electronic desktop banking components to transition corporate account holders away from paper-based reporting.
- Highlights: Successfully brought together distinct, disparate code elements from custom-built platform deployments into a reusable core application suite. This allowed for a much tighter phased development lifecycle and streamlined version control.
- Political Landscape: Driven by early post-deregulation European banking markets. The signing of the Single European Act accelerated the demand for standardized, cross-border electronic financial transparency and transaction systems.
2. Project: Barclays Business Master II (BBM II) Integration
- Year: 1990 – 1993
- Location: On-site delivery at Barclays facilities in Knutsford (Cheshire) and Wimborne Road, Poole (Dorset), UK.
- Technology: HP NonStop Mainframe infrastructure and Tandem database handlers.
- IT Languages: NonStop SQL embedded within COBOL85.
- Customer: Barclays Bank.
- Project Overview: On-site engineering to design, write, and safely execute software pathways supporting the core desktop electronic financial transaction engine for Barclays’ corporate client tier.
- Highlights: Spearheaded the development and successful deployment of a customized batch-billing suite of modules in Poole (1993). This specialized subsystem accurately calculated and invoiced corporate clients based on their precise application usage.
- Political Landscape: The UK corporate financial sector faced intense market pressures to replace slow, batch-by-post paper processes with near-immediate data delivery to retain competitive multi-million-pound commercial accounts.
3. Project: Girofon Interactive Voice Banking Integration
- Year: Early 1990s
- Location: In-house Runcorn delivery with remote implementation.
- Technology: Periphonics interactive voice processing equipment (VRAM devices) and menu-driven telephony integrations.
- IT Languages: COBOL85, TAL (Tandem Application Language), and NonStop SQL.
- Customer: Girofon (Denmark).
- Project Overview: Building a secure technical gateway connecting external voice processing telephone networks with back-end mainframe core banking ledgers.
- Highlights: Co-developed the specialized telecommunications code suite that allowed retail banking users to dial in via a touch-tone phone, step through an automated interactive menu, and safely retrieve real-time account details and latest balances read back via computer voice.
- Political Landscape: Rapid deregulation of telecoms and banking across the Nordic region, combined with a societal shift toward convenient “anytime, anywhere” automated self-service financial access prior to the internet age.
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