Distributed, object oriented global trade finance system with imbedded imaging and work flow and reference data

摘要

An object oriented trade finance system designed to support a large-scale transactional work flow on a global basis. The system is designed to support imbedded imaging technology for the scanning, storage and retrieval of all documents coming into and going out of the system. The system supports a flexible 3-tier architecture providing direct separation between the presentation layer, the business layer and the database layer. This flexibility allows for the distribution of processing across geographic boundaries while also providing the ability to perform high-volume transaction processing. The system supports all facets of the trade finance business including but not limited to letters of credit, collections, bankers acceptances and reimbursements. A trade finance system organized into a central and distributed location hardware architecture with a three tier software architecture having a user interface of a user work station which communicates with an application server including business objects. The business objects communicate with a database to obtain the data needed for the business logic and for display on the interface. The business objects include all the business logic needed for the system. An imaging server is provided to allowing users to view copies of the trade finance documents as work items are processed by using a link in the work item to the document image. Work flow distribution rules are used to distribute the work items to a work item list for work group that can be distributed geographically in different time zones. The rules also redistribute the work items as needed to allow processing to continue when the originally assigned workgroup has reached an end of its business day. A communication service facilitates communication between the business objects and the user interface using attribute links in the interface windows. An attribute manager facilitates obtaining attributes needed by the business objects allowing the business objects to include generic rather than specialized attribute access methods.