SOLICITATION NOTICE
D -- Financial Institution Information Verification
- Notice Date
- 9/14/2006
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 541511
— Custom Computer Programming Services
- Contracting Office
- Social Security Administration, Office of Budget, Finance, and Management, Office of Acquisition and Grants, 1st Floor, Rear Entrance 7111 Security Blvd., Baltimore, MD, 21244
- ZIP Code
- 21244
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-SSA-RFQ-06-1858
- Response Due
- 9/18/2006
- Archive Date
- 10/3/2006
- Description
- DESCRIPTION: The Social Security Administration intends to negotiate on a sole source basis with SourceMedia Inc., d/b/a Accuity, formerly Thomson Financial Publishing (TFP), 4709 West Golf Road, Suite 600, Skokie, IL 60076-1253 under the authority of FAR 6.302-1, ???Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements???, to purchase hardware maintenance and support services as outlined below. This is part the Financial Institution Information Verification project, which has just completed its three year Proof of Concept stage. The Foster Care Independence Act gives SSA the right to require Supplemental Security Income (SSI) applicants, recipients and deemors to give authorization to financial institutions (FI) to provide verification of an SSI applicant???s, recipient???s or deemor???s financial assets. SSA???s current process for obtaining asset verification is paper-based. The form SSA-4641-U2, Authorization for the Social Security Administration to Obtain Account Records From A Financial Institution and Request for Records, is mailed to the FI and asks the FI to provide the balance held in a financial account at specified dates. SSA is seeking contractor support to refine, implement and maintain the system, which SSA and Accuity have worked on for three years. Accuity serves as the official registrar of the Routing Number System for the American Bankers Association (ABA); they are purportedly the single source for assigning and retiring routing numbers for every institutions that meets the criteria established by the ABA; it is believed that every financial institution in the US must come to them to be assigned, to retire, or to change a routing number. In their capacity as Official Registrar of the Routing Number System for the ABA, Accuity collects, processes, and maintains a database of current information on financial institutions worldwide. SSA previously awarded three successive orders, of one year each, to Accuity, for the Proof of Concept (POC) for these services. During the POC phase, Accuity successfully demonstrated a process for verifications and reimbursement requests from a number of test offices in selected states. This involved converting to electronic media the informational exchanges that now occur in paper form each year between financial institutions and SSA during the initial application period and the re-determination process. In addition to requesting account balances and interest income revealed by the applicant/recipient, the POC also requested and verified titling and balance information on all types of accounts or certificates held by the applicant/recipient. The initial POC phase was successfully completed, and a second, follow-on phase of the POC, featuring gathering of study data for a potential nationwide roll-out of the SSA/Accuity proprietary accounts verification program, was implemented the next year. Following that, SSA???s proceeded to the ???Fully Developed Phase??? and worked to complete systems development to fully automate the account verification, reimbursement processes, with the ultimate goal to make the verification process totally transparent to the user so that the system automatically generates verification requests, records the response and then only generates alerts to the user for cases requiring further action. SSA now intends to set up an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity contract, with one base year and two option years, for a proposed extension of the Accuity process from the POC phase to the fully developed phase that includes: a) continuing support for the Accuity POC system in the New York/New Jersey FOs and the OQP regional sites; b) recruitment of additional FIs across the nation to participate in the Accuity process; c) process enhancements to the Accuity POC system; d) upgrade the asset verification system to ensure that the system has the capacity, redundancy/backup and data security capabilities necessary to support continued expansion to additional SSA FOs; e) phased rollout of the Accuity process to additional SSA FOs; and f) support for the Office of Systems initiative to incorporate the automated SSA-4641-U2 request form into the Modernized SSI Claims System. To date, Accuity is the only company identified by SSA that has the capability for detecting unreported depository accounts at financial institutions using the customer???s name and social security number as the identifying information. The SSA has previously conducted extensive market research and published multiple sources sought notices to identify alternative source s of supply for these services. This research has demonstrated to the SSA that Accuity is the only organization uniquely qualified to implement all the tasks required by SSA. Again, this is a notice of intent to negotiate on a sole source basis with Accuity for these follow-on services and not a request for competitive proposals. Any responsible firm that feels it has the capability to provide this requirement and has similar capabilities and resources as Accuity may respond in writing no later than September 18, 2006, with capability statements and information describing in full detail their capabilities to accomplish SSA???s objec!ive. Additionally, respondents should cite specific examples of their experience in detecting unreported depository accounts at financial institutions using the customer???s name and social security number as the identifying information. Interested parties that feel they can provide these services shall respond by submitting their capability statement by e-mail to Kathryn.fain@ssa.gov. All responses shall be marked CAPABILITY STATEMENT ??? FINANCIAL INSTITUTION VERIFICATION. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether or not to conduct a competitive procurement. A determination by the government not to compete this requirement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. If no responses are received by the cutoff date above, the SSA will proceed with negotiations with Accuity. Telephone calls regarding this matter will not be accepted, nor will they be returned.
- Record
- SN01144270-W 20060916/060914222301 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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