REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP) Specification No C FOR Banking Services Proposals will not be opened and read publicly

Transcription

1 Finance Department Purchasing Division REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP) Specification No C FOR Banking Services Proposals will not be opened and read publicly ADDENDUM C September 7, 2012 Dear Proposer: Please note the following change in submission date. In addition the City has included Attachment I.a in Excel format for bid submission, and Exhibits 1 and 2 for reference: 1. Deadline for Proposal submission has changed from Thursday, October 4, 2012 to Thursday, October 11, Bid Sheet (Attachment I-(a)) in Excel Format. Please utilize this attachment to submit pricing. 3. Exhibit 1-Client Analysis Statement 4. Exhibit 2-Sample Lockbox Refuse Bill Questions received from proposers along with answers are attached. Please note that proposals must be received by Thursday, October 11, 2012, no later than 2:00 pm. All responses must be in a sealed envelope and have BANKING SERVICES and Specification No C clearly marked on the outer most mailing receptacle. Mail or Hand Deliver to: City of Berkeley Finance/Purchasing 2180 Milvia St., 3 rd Fl. Berkeley, CA Bids will not be accepted after the date and time stated above. Incomplete bids that do not conform to the requirements specified herein will not be considered. Thank you for your interest in working with the City of Berkeley for this service. We look forward to receiving your response. Sincerely, Henry Oyekanmi-General Services Manager 2180 Milvia Street, Berkeley, CA Tel: TDD: Fax: finance@ci.berkeley.ca.us Website:

2 Addendum C Questions and Answers for RFP C Banking Services The City of Berkeley has received questions from some potential respondents regarding RFP C Banking Services. In an effort to provide the same information to all, listed below are the questions received to date, with responses from City staff. 1. I have noted the volumes referenced throughout the City of Berkeley s Banking Services RFP; however, will you be providing specific line item volumes through a current account analysis statement or separate bid sheet attachment? If so, when do you plan to post those specific volumes to the Berkeley website? Answer: Yes. See Exhibit We are an independent ISO processor. I was wondering if we could submit a bid for the Merchant Services section only on RFP No C. Answer: Yes. 3. The City will be posting a bid sheet, will it also include a copy of the account analysis statement of its current banking contractor? Answer: Yes. See Exhibit Further question on the account analysis. Does your current bank have a fixed price for your earnings credit or is it a variable rate over time? Answer: Earnings Credit Rate is based upon the 91-day T-Bill Auction Rate. 5. Section G, last sentence. I assume this is for cash management reporting only. Answer: No. This sentence refers to all reporting and all available tools to help City staff in cash management and investment reconciliation. 6. Section G, number 4-Describe your experience and knowledge in investment. What kind of investment? Investment management, daily investment, long term investment, custody processing? Can you elaborate? Answer: All of the above. 7. Section H number 1- Are you talking about operation account or custodial account? Answer: Number 1 refers to having the bank automatically sweeps over excess funds from the Operating Master to an account to earn interest overnight. 8. (Page 4, Section B., Check Processing, Question #14) Is the City aware of holder in due course regulations that provide guidance for how to handle a check cashed on the same date a Stop Payment is placed? Answer: Yes. 9. (Page 6, Section E., Deposit Activity, Question #11) Can the city provide samples of all invoices/coupons that would be used in a Lockbox situation? Answer: See Exhibit (Page 6, Section E., Deposit Activity, Question #11).Can the city provide a sample of the needed Lockbox file format to allow us to validate the ability to create the necessary file format.

3 Answer: No. Lockbox file is a text file. Data fields should include customer account number, secondary account number, payment date, payment amount, payment type code, comments, and a couple more fields to allow for other items as needed. Most of the data fields are already in the bill itself. For an example, refer to Exhibit 2. General Questions : 11. Will the City be providing us with volumes for Attachment I? Answer: No. The City is asking the bidder to submit volume ranges relevant to their pricing structure, in the event there is tier pricing based on volume processed. 12. Can the City provide the proposed Pricing Bid sheet in Word/Excel Format? Answer: Yes, see Attachment I-(a). 13. Can the City provide the Professional Service Contract in Word format? Answer: No. All changes to the City s contract boiler plate must be approved by the City Attorney. 14. Is the City considering an alternative to paper checks for payroll for those who do not receive Direct Deposit? Answer: No. Investment Questions : 15. In Section G. Questions 4-6, when the City refers to investments, are we referring to daily operational investments, investment management or custodial services? Answer (Q#4): All of the above. Answer (Q#5): All of the above. Answer (Q#6): Sympro is a Treasury and investment management software that the City uses. It provides the reporting and management of City s investment portfolio. The question relates to system integration and data interchange between Sympro and the bank s online banking system; for example, via Excel worksheet or other means. 16. In Section H. Are we referring to investments and sweeps for the daily operation account, investment accounts or custody accounts? Answer: H-6 refers to custodial services only and your experience and knowledge in that service area. H-1 to H-5 pertains to sweeps and investments. Purchase Card/Payable Questions (Q #17 to 71): The City does not use Purchase card, but utilizes corporate credit cards. Questions / Requests for Information

4 17. Custom Card designs is there a design for your current cards? Or do you color coordinate per division? Could you provide an image of your current card and a sample logo you would like to use on your card?. 18. Do you currently utilize recycled plastic for current programs?. 19. Are all your current cards actual plastics or do you have ghost card accounts? If so, how many ghost accounts do you currently have? What is those specific accounts annual volume and annual number of transactions?. 20. Training what are your training requirements for your cardholders? Could you provide a sample of your purchase card policy program and any internal forms utilized to establish accounts? 21. How often is your current outstanding balance on your p Card program paid? Monthly, Weekly, Daily Would the City consider a daily or weekly settlement/pay if the rate or return exceeded current depository sweeps/returns?. 23. How do you currently pay your current Card Program statement balances ACH, Check, Wire? Answer: Check 24. How often are you currently receiving statements? Monthly, Weekly. Answer: Monthly 25. Do you receive paper statements or electronic images of statements? Or both? Answer: Both 26. Does each cardholder receive their own individual statement? or department only statements? Answer: Individual and summary statement. 27. Do you allow for Cash Advance services on your card program? If so, could you detail in what areas or with which employee groups this is utilized? Answer: No 28. Do you have a need for Convenient Checks on your program? If so, please define the usage parameters or cardholders. Answer: No 29. Are the City s travel services centrally booked with a local travel agency or do individuals book their own travel? If central booking is done, do you utilize a card for those services, i.e. Central Travel Card?

5 30. How are card numbers assigned to your district? Randomly, in sync, as received by the issuer, please describe 31. When a card is issued, what is the maturity cycle i.e. 2 years, 3 years etc. 32. Have you experienced Fraud on your Current Card program? If, so, could you provide the amounts and types of transactions Answer: No 33. If your Card policy parameters and control/reporting mechanisms could be built into your P Card program, would you be receptive to that? 34. How are you currently handling receipts that correlate with your P Card program? Are you using any image services to house receipts? 35. Do you utilize Declining Balance/Event Planner cards to correlate with Fixed Budget Line items? (On Capital Funding, grants, etc) If so, how many cards and estimated annual volume. 36. Does the City have cards outside the current P Card program? i.e. Store Branded Cards (Target, Sam s, Wal-Mart)? If so how many, numbers, names and volume. 37. Has the card program had requests for Chip & Pin technology in their cards from employees? 38. Are you utilizing any mobile applications with your current card program? If so, please explain. 39. Is there any instance of when cash is being sent with an employee to conduct work related business? Answer: No 40. What percentages of your vendors are currently accepting cards for payments? 41. In the past, what has the City historically done when vendors are not accepting cards to start accepting cards for payment? 42. Do you currently receive a rebate with your card program? If so, how much and how frequently is the rebate paid? Can you provide a copy of your current contract and rebate schedule for your card services. 43. Do you currently receive invoices from vendors electronically? If so how what % of vendors are sending invoices this way to the school district?

6 44. If you could utilize card payments to settle approved payments to vendors versus a check, would you be receptive to writing fewer checks? 45. Are vendor invoices stored as paper or are the invoices imaged and stored digitally? Answer: Paper. 46. If stored as paper, how many years of invoices are housed by the City? Answer: 10 years. 47. How many Vendor Invoices are paid by the City annually? Answer: 5,000 invoices 48. How many Vendor 1099 reports are generated for the City? Are those generated internally? If externally, who provides this service and at what cost? Answer: About 400 and they are generated internally. 49. Does the City cross match current vendors with Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) list? 50. With regard to general payables, has the City conducted a review/or estimated the internal costs associated to send out a check remittance to a vendor? i.e. what is your internal cost to generate a paper check? Answer: No, not recently. 51. What are the internal costs for the City to generate a 1099? Answer: About 4 hours of staff time. 52. Are wire customers determined by the City or is this payment mechanism requested by the vendor? Answer: City, except for Payroll and Sales tax payments. 53. With regard to payables, do you compile any year end reports specific to Vendor management? If so, can you provide a list of those reports generate and one sample of those reports Answer: No. 54. With your current card system, how do you reconcile card transactions? Is it manual i.e., transactions printed and manually posted. Is it electronic i.e. reconciled within current card system and then imported. If electronic, could you provide a sample of the reports utilized for this. Answer: City does not use P-cards, but our Corporate credit cards are reconciled manually. 55. What IT systems are used to reconcile your current card transactions?, see answer to Q#54 above. 56. Do your vendor purchase contracts preclude payment with cards? If so, is that all contracts or only specific contracts? If specific, could you provide a sample of this type of contract precluding payment with a card?

7 57. With Current card activity, please describe approval hierarchy. For example, is it just to the individual or department heads or purchasing? Answer: Department Directors. 58. What IT system is utilized by the City to house all parts of your purchasing? i.e. Do you utilize any other software to generate P.O. s, use something for imaging, etc? Answer: SunGard Public Sector Solutions. Stellent is the City s imaging software, currently not being used to image invoices or P.O. 59. Could you describe the steps involved for an internal purchase to be made? Starting with, an employee or department needs an item, all the way through to issuing payment for this item? Answer: There are several steps: department submits an approved requisition to general services who then processes it into a P.O. Upon receipt of goods and services, department receives online, followed by Accounts Payable and accounting processing. The end product is either a check or ACH transmission or wire. 60. What internal auditing policies are in place for your current program? Answer: City s administrative regulations. 61. Does your program incorporate any of these card usage blocks: MCC Code, Velocity, Decline attempts, or Product blocks? If so, could you provide a listing of the current MCC codes blocked in your program. 62. When you receive Level III Data, what information do you process or document internally? 63. Explain your current internal process to replace a lost, damaged, or stolen card. Answer: Card holder reports a lost, damaged or stolen card to the Finance Director. 64. How often does the City currently pay vendors when remitting checks? With wires? With ACH? Once a month, bi weekly? Answer: Checks weekly, wires and ACH as needed. 65. Can you identify the internal team that a provider would work with to transition into a new card/payables program? And identify their roles? Answer: City s bank contact is in the Finance Department. 66. Do vendors incorrectly charge taxes? If so, what are the procedures for handling this event today? Answer: Accounts Payable corrects tax errors. 67. Could you please identify the current limits on current cards and the policy set to determine limits? Or how those limits may be modified? Answer: $5,000 per card. Limits may be modified with Finance Director approval on a case by case basis. 68. Could you provide a detail of the internal work flow for vendor purchases? i.e. Do you have a Purchase order request, then routed for approval after purchase? Answer: See answer to Q#59 above.

8 69. Can you provide a listing of all business to business check transactions in the following worksheet? Answer: No. 70. Do individual card holders remit separate expense reports for non card reimbursed activities? i.e. mileage, non card purchases/expenses? If so, how many reports are processed and how is the employee reimbursed? Answer: Yes, by check. About 700 reports are processed annually for employee reimbursements. 71. Do you currently image any receipts associated with your cards? Merchant Processing Questions: 72. Could you disclose the number of locations (MIDs, Merchant IDentification numbers) accepting payments? Answer: Of the 19.0M in volume, what was the number of transactions to process that volume? Answer: About 3 million transactions 74. Please detail the equipment used to process payments, hardware, software, POS Systems and ecommerce (Web) Answer: Bank terminals and 3 rd party software. 75. Are all solutions owned, rented and/or leased? Answer: 3 rd party processor. 76. Does the City pay all processing cost or are constituents assess a convenience fee at any of the MIDs? Answer: Currently City pays all credit card costs, but City recently has implemented a convenience fee online payment system via a 3 rd party gateway. 77. Does the City accept checks and turn them into electronic transactions? Answer: No. Customer Service Questions: 78. Section L, Question 3. Expected time to return calls will be 30 minutes to one hour - - our customer service group have an opt out line if the current line is unavailable. Therefore, a live person will be there to answer the phone M-F from 7:30 5:30. Would this be sufficient enough? Answer: Yes for general questions, but not for Scope specific questions. The City s expectation is to have a designated contact that has knowledge and expertise with the City s accounts and will return calls within the 30 minute to one hour time frame. 79. Is the City interested in expanding the use of Corporate Cards to include vendor payments? Answer: Open to proposal.

9 80. Does the City have any preference for paying fees with the analysis credits generated by account balances or directly billing? Answer: Open to proposal. 81. In regards to the Nuclear Free Zone Disclosure Form requirement, is the City requesting that any and all customers of the Bank refrain from doing business with any and all nuclear related businesses? Answer: No, this Form only pertains to vendors, but not their customers. 82. In regards to the Nuclear Free Zone Disclosure Form requirement, are financial institutions exempt from this requirement? Answer: No. The assumption is that financial institutions are not involved in nuclear products. Information about the Nuclear Free Ordinance can be found on the City s website: =html&key=336&path=/ca/berkeley/html/berkeley12/berkeley1290/berkeley1290.html 83. In regards to the Oppressive States Compliance Statement, can we please get a copy of Section VII of the Berkeley City Council Resolution No. 59,853-N.S? Answer: The entire resolution can be found on the City Clerk s website page. Go to search records on line. From select document type choose resolution and then type in the resolution number Section E. Deposit Activity: #10 Please describe the sub-accounts to track deposits by location. Is this a location number for Deposit Reconciliation or is it a ZBA sub-account or something different? Answer: They are bank accounts for Deposit Reconciliation. 85. How many Controlled Disbursement accounts does the City utilize currently? Answer: City currently does not have Controlled Disbursement accounts, but include in the proposal. 86. Will the City be providing volumes associated with the various Service codes? Answer: See Exhibit Pymt Auth Max Check Mthly Base What service is the City receiving from this line item? What functionality does it provide? Answer: This relates to the maximum amount of the check that is allowed for presentment. 88. What payments will be made from the Controlled Disbursement Account(s)? Payroll, Vendor Payments, Refunds, etc? Answer: City currently does not have Controlled Disbursement accounts, but wants it in the proposal. 89. Does the City originate ACH items through their current bank s website (online) or via FTP transmission or both? What is the volume of each delivery method? Answer: Through the Bank s website. 90. Although our bank has access to all services offered by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, we do not own stock and are not considered a member. We are headquartered in San Francisco,

10 regulated by the State of California, FDIC -insured and are members of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. We fully comply with all other minimum requirements contained in the RFP. Is this acceptable to the City? Answer: Yes. 91. How should we submit pricing for this proposal? Answer: Utilize attachment I-(a) and include all services proposed to the City by your institution.