ATLANTA, Oct. 11, 2004 — Today at the Sibos 2004 conference, Microsoft Corp. announced that SWIFT has awarded Microsoft
® BizTalk®
Accelerator for SWIFT the coveted SWIFTReady Financial Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) Gold label. The SWIFTReady Financial EAI Gold label is a milestone and significant reinforcement for Microsoft’s approach to providing financial institutions with a cost-effective way to transfer payments and securities transactions, improve partner connectivity, and improve operational efficiencies. The latest customers to take advantage of this technology include Sekerbank, a leading private commercial bank in Turkey, and Banco Espaol de Crdito SA (Banesto), a leading provider of commercial and corporate banking in Spain.
As the financial services industry looks for opportunities to automate more of its processes, better integrate across all trading partners, and replace aging and high-priced infrastructure, it also is entering a period of growth. The BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT enables customers and independent solution vendors to deliver solutions that can enable financial institutions to quickly integrate into the SWIFT network and automate the transaction life cycle. More easily tying into the SWIFT network can serve as a cornerstone to straight-through processing and help provide financial institutions with the agility to capitalize on future opportunities.
Customers Realize Operational Efficiency and Competitive Advantage
Sekerbank has implemented BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT to manage SWIFT messages for international trade, funds management and capital markets transactions.
Tanol Trkoglu, assistant general manager at Sekerbank, said, “Seventy-five percent of SWIFT messages are now created automatically without any human intervention or manual entry. The number of people hired for SWIFT operations has decreased, and the process cycle of end-to-end messaging has been accelerated.
“Not only was the project in production in six months, but $100,000 has been saved by developing these applications using Microsoft technology,” Trkoglu said. “As a result, we have positioned Microsoft BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT as the strategic middleware for all of Sekerbank’s financial applications.”
Banesto, which has 1,500 branches in Spain serving more than 3 million customers, is taking immediate steps to adopt Microsoft BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT so that it can take advantage of the new services being offered by SWIFT, such as cash reporting.
Daniel Garcia, enterprise application integration manager at Banesto, said, “The great advantage of BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT is the openness of the solution, which means that we will be able to customize it and add new SWIFT standards very easily. There is a significant competitive advantage to being one of the first users of new SWIFT message standards. Implementing BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT will help us maintain our reputation for delivering outstanding customer service based on the latest technology innovation.”
Solution Addresses Industry Opportunities and Challenges
“Against the confluence of events we’re seeing in the industry, we’re working to help our customers address three primary opportunities and challenges: risk, reputation and growth,” said Bill Hartnett, general manager of Financial Service and Strategy Solutions at Microsoft. “With BizTalk and the Accelerator, the SWIFT membership can now leverage Microsoft economies of scale within their operational infrastructures, while maximizing previous technology investments.”
“We are very pleased to award the SWIFTReady Financial EAI Gold label to Microsoft BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT,” said Joel Ludvigsen, director of Partner Solutions at SWIFT. “SWIFT’s label confirms Microsoft’s capability and competence in providing global financial services with an out-of-the-box SWIFT-ready solution that is cost-effective, easy-to-manage, scalable and flexible, at a lower total cost of ownership.”
About BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT
BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT enables easy integration with existing and legacy systems. The solution allows financial institutions to deliver a rapid return on investment and a lower TCO. It enables banks, their corporate customers and securities firms to implement a financial value chain to automate the initiation, settlement and reconciliation of payments, cash management, trades and other financial transactions, resulting in a dramatic reduction in the time and cost associated with settling and reconciling transactions.
BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT provides financial institutions with a complete solution for SWIFT messaging, from high-performance, high-availability clusters to low-cost manual message entry and repair. It meets the demands of even the largest enterprises with built-in support for multiple processor servers, server clustering, and integration with unlimited internal applications and external partners.
About Microsoft in Financial Services
Microsoft is a leading provider of software products and technology to the financial services industry. Its customers operate in every area of retail banking, insurance and pensions, and the financial markets. Microsoft focuses on providing the security technologies, scalability and reliability that the financial enterprise requires. Through Microsoft .NET, the XML Web services platform, Microsoft helps customers act on information any time, any place and from any smart device.
Working with leading software vendors and systems integrators in the banking and insurance industries, Microsoft supports financial institutions in re-engineering core business operations, achieving straight-through processing (STP), better managing all aspects of risk and capital adequacy, increasing efficiency in branch banking operations, and establishing a new generation of telephone- and Internet-based financial services channels.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
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