Faster, secure and generic transactions: an interesting challenge

Cees Huijerjans, DevOps engineer

"I used to want my own flower stall or landscaping company. Nothing could be further from what I'm doing now. My father worked in landscaping and managed a cemetery. Nice work that I saw myself doing too, but when I got diabetes I was advised to steer clear of demanding physical work.

In 1982, looking for an office job, I ended up in the Archive department of ABP (now part of APG). I went to night school, had several jobs in banking processes and gained some IT experience. Ten years ago I was given the task of making payment transactions at APG more secure. The idea – a generic payment tool – turned out to be a permanent system. We're still using it for some 16 million pension payment processes each year.

As a DevOps engineer I play a pivotal role in the system that optimizes, improves, renews and monitors specific applications and infrastructure. It's useful work, because it enables me to make a concrete contribution to reliable and safe payment transactions in the APG chain.

ICT is always on the move. An interesting challenge is to bring about faster payment transactions, so that the recipient has the money available within five seconds. As it stands, this still takes a couple of hours. Another development involves making payment transactions more transparent. The idea is that we will be able to track payments from start to finish, between banks and countries. Once we as APG have an overview of the entire chain, we can see exactly how long a bank takes to make a payment and whether it is making any charges. This is vital, for example, in the case of complaints: you need to quickly find out who paid, what and when.

The space and open corporate culture at APG allow me to think along with ICT about innovation and creative solutions every day. I've gained a great deal in my 38 years with APG. I've been given and taken many opportunities. The fact that I'm naturally curious and inquisitive has also helped me to move forward."

#doyouseeyourfuturewithAPG