The Norwegian Civil Affairs Authority invites tenderers to a contest with negotiations for the procurement of an accounting system that will function as a link between 53 banks and the guardianship administration's case management tool VERA.

The Norwegian Civil Affairs Authority administers the case management system VERA, which is the guardianship administration's joint trade system. The system is used by case workers at the County Governor and the Norwegian Civil Affairs Authority (SRF) to manage guardianship from start to finish, including making decisions, follow-up of cases, replying to enquiries, follow-up of finances and supervision.

The guardianship administration is responsible for managing all major resources belonging to persons with a guardian or underage persons with assets. A scheme has been established for this where banks can act as a 'guardian bank' and the resources belonging to each individual are put into an account where the person is the owner, but the County Governor is the only authorised user. There are currently 53 Norwegian banks that are in the scheme and a total of approx. 32 000 accounts are managed, with deposits of more than NOK 21 billion.

The County Governor is responsible for all payments from these accounts. This is initiated in the trade system and executed in the finance component Agresso via Telepay files. The County Governor also receives all transactions from the accounts that are shown in the trade system.

The current finance component is due to be replaced. The intention of this tender is to continue the current administration model in a modern finance component, as well as further develop the use of the finance component with closer integration with the trade system.

The County Governor's administration assignments within finance are mainly:

• overview of the balance and transactions;

• approval of applications for withdrawals or use of resources in capital accounts;

• execute the withdrawal of resources from capital accounts;

• establishment of a capital account on behalf of a guardian (and the person under the guardian);

• assist an external auditor with annual audits of the County Governor's financial management of guardianship.

The primary needs that a new system must cover are therefore:

• receive account transactions from all accounts connected to the guardianship scheme in all qualified banks (53) via ISO20022 and send them to the trade system via API;

• receive balances for the above-mentioned accounts (approx. 32,000) from the banks and send them to the trade system via API;

• send a message to the bank on a payment from an account connected to the guardianship scheme via ISO20022. The actual job is done in the trade system and sent to the finance component via API;

• balance incoming and outgoing amounts and balance;

• connect account and transaction information to the register in the trade system;

The contracting authority's vision is closer integration with the trade system, more automation of current manual processes, and better integration with the banks.