Managing Subscription Manager Information

You can create and manage profiles in the system database and offers, assign order types and file formats to an offer, and assign permissions to users.

The Subscription Manager menu in Sterling B2B Integrator enables you to:
  • Create and manage bank, partner, and user profiles in the system database
  • Create and manage offers
  • Assign order types and file formats to an offer
  • Assign permissions to users
A bank can have only one profile with a unique bank ID. A bank profile contains the following information:
  • Unique ID of the bank
    Note: Each bank ID should have a unique port number.
  • Name of the bank
  • Address of the bank
  • Public and private encryption, authentication and identification certificates
    Note: An EBICS server supports both RSA keys and X509 certificates for authentication and encryption.
    Important: For an EBICS Server, the following are valid with respect to RSA certificates:
    • The RSA private keys must be used only for EBICS configurations. RSA keys are not supported for usage with other adapters such as HTTPS and FTPS.
    • The default expiry dates of public RSA certificates selected for bank configuration is 10 years and certificates must be replaced after 10 years of time.
    • The RSA keys used for EBICS need not be checked out unlike X509 certificates.
  • HTTP URL of the bank
  • EBICS protocol version

A bank can have multiple URLs. The corresponding bank URL is given to a user to send requests to the bank. The Uniform Resource Indicator (URI) is configured in the HTTP Server adapter to listen at the port and receive EBICS requests, if any.

The following versions of bank protocol and process types are supported:
  • EBICS protocol version - H004, H003. H000
  • Signature versions - A005, A006
  • Authentication version - X002
  • Encryption version - E002
Each partner can have one or more account information and partner IDs. You must specify the account number, either in national (German) or international (IBAN) format. You can associate a partner ID with an offer. The partner profile contains the following information:
  • Unique ID of the partner
  • Organization code of the partner
  • Name of the partner
  • Address of the partner
  • Account ID and account holder's name
  • Currency in which transaction is performed
  • Account number
  • Bank code

A user can be under one or more partners. A bank can create a user with or without associating a user with a partner. To enable exchange of EBICS messages between a partner and a user, you must associate a user ID with a partner ID.

A user transmits the public certificates to the bank through two independent communication paths:
  • INI - Sends the public bank-technical key
  • HIA - Sends the public identification and authentication key and the public encryption key

When a user is first assigned to a partner, the status of the user is New. If the user sends only the INI request to the corresponding bank, the status is changed to Partly Initialized (INI). If the user sends only the HIA request to the bank, the status is changed to Partly Initialized (HIA). After the user sends both the INI and HIA requests to the bank, the status is changed to Initialized. The user mails the initialization letters of the INI and HIA keys to the bank. When the bank receives the initialization letters pertaining to INI and HIA, it verifies the hash values in the certificates against its database. After successful verification, the status of the user is set to Ready, indicating that the user can now transact with the bank. The user then downloads the bank's public certificates by using the HPB system order type.

You can use the HKD and HTD order types to retrieve subscriber information stored by the bank after the user status is set to Ready.

Use the EBICS Subscription Manager Service to validate the keys on the INI and HIA initialization letters. On successful validation, the status of the user is updated, for example, Ready, indicating that the user has sent the HIA and INI initialization letters to the bank. You can also use this service to import or export subscription manager data to or from the bank system database.

The user profile contains the following information:
  • Unique ID of the user
  • Name of the user
  • Address of the user
  • Partner ID to which the user is associated
  • Mailbox settings to enable uploading, downloading, and archiving of messages
EBICS order types specify the various transactions that can take place between the EBICS server and an EBICS client. An order type can have zero or more file formats. You can associate file formats with the bank-technical upload and download order types. You can use upload order types to upload order data from an EBICS client to an EBICS server and download order types to download order data from an EBICS server to an EBICS client. An order type contains the following attributes:
  • The order type
  • EBICS protocol version
  • Transfer type - Upload or Download
  • Order data type - System or Technical
A file format contains the following attributes:
  • The file format
  • Country code of the file format
A bank can create one or more offers. An offer provides an easy method of grouping a set of order types and file formats to a list of partners. Each partner is allocated a list of order types to enable transactions between the bank and the partner. An offer provides an easy way for the bank to set up a contract with the partner. An offer contains the following information:
  • Bank ID
  • Name of the offer
  • The order types and file formats using which the partner can exchange messages
  • Level of authorization for the order type
  • Number of signatures required to authorize the order
A partner can be associated with one or more users. A bank assigns the following permissions to a user:
  • The order types and file formats using which the user can exchange messages
  • Level of authorization for the order type
  • The maximum amount (for a specific partner account) a user can transact. You can associate multiple partner accounts with different maximum amount.
  • The currency in which the maximum amount for the user is specified. The currency depends on the partner account associated with the maximum amount.