LAS VEGAS — Nov. 14, 2006 — Today at the BAI Retail Delivery Conference & Expo, in an effort to help banks rapidly achieve interoperability among business applications, Microsoft Corp. announced a new initiative that provides prescriptive architecture guidance, tools and reference implementations aimed at achieving consistency in banking integration.
The Microsoft® Banking Integration Factory initiative utilizes the latest advances in the Microsoft platform, Microsoft .NET and technology solutions from ARGO Data Resource Corp., Corillian Corp., Getronics, Harland Financial Solutions Inc., and Jack Henry & Associates Inc. Other industry partners supporting the initiative include AdviceAmerica Inc., Fair Isaac Corp., Fiserv CBS Worldwide and Portrait Software PLC. The initiative seeks to integrate Microsoft and partner technologies at the services level and introduce interoperability via composite line-of-business applications.
“Banks have dedicated massive efforts toward resolving integration issues between new business applications and their legacy software,” said Greg Haislip, managing director for the banking industry in the U.S. Financial Services Group at Microsoft. “The new Banking Integration Factory helps solve this problem by providing a standard approach adopted by multiple vendors, to lead to more rapid implementation.”
The Banking Integration Factory will establish a set of guidelines and tools to enable consistency in service implementations. The initiative will not develop new message standards for the banking industry, but rather will establish commonality between vendors and the services they expose. This includes creating consistency in interfaces, complying with Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) profiles to increase interoperability, and cross-cutting aspects such as security, confidentiality, configuration, exceptions and logging — all in an effort to make integration much easier.
In addition, the Banking Integration Factory presents Microsoft’s vision for building composite banking applications that provide banks with an unprecedented level of choice in creating user interfaces that can be accessed via a Web browser; Windows®-based desktop, notebook or Tablet PCs; mobile devices; or the Microsoft Office system. The end result will bring together a uniform environment for cross-channel application integration and help provide better experiences for employees, customers and others across five core bank business processes:
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Branch tellers will be able to provide customers with service quickly, efficiently and accurately, accepting deposits and cashing checks, issuing nontraditional financial instruments, and answering customers’ account inquiries.
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Branch sellers will be able to provide customers with multiple sales and service offerings — such as opening new accounts, managing forms, completing loan applications, offering account products and services, and sharing product information — through immediate access to customer information.
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Call center workers will be able to effectively interact with customers through indirect or self-service channels, processing new accounts, providing assisted and self-service transactions, resolving customer service requests, and building customer relationships.
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Online banking will enable remote customer self-service via the Internet, processing transactions, electronic bill presentment and payments, electronic statements, money transfers and account inquiries.
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ATMs will enable customer self-service, offering access to account information, processing self-service transactions, printing statements and offering product sales.
“The movement to service-oriented architectures will inevitably lead to a complex array of business components in the bank’s back offices,” said Jerry Silva, research director for Delivery Channels and Retail Banking at TowerGroup. “So we must make plans to move toward an integration model at the front office that makes delivery of those components fast, easy and flexible.”
Banks will benefit from the Banking Integration Factory by having a flexible architecture that allows them to integrate their existing infrastructures with new applications, using consistent Web services and application composition to help increase implementation speed and value. In addition, banks’ custom-developed applications will be able to be quickly integrated with software acquired from vendors.
Microsoft today also unveiled a white paper outlining the Banking Integration Factory. The paper, titled “Unified Communications and Collaboration for the Banking Industry,” describes the Banking Integration Factory’s reference architecture and its vision for composite banking applications with partner-driven scenarios addressing the five key areas.
About Microsoft in Financial Services
Microsoft’s Financial Services Group provides software that helps financial firms transform the customer, employee and operations experience so they can maximize opportunities for increased market share and profitability. Microsoft software helps empower people and IT staff within financial firms — and across key focus areas such as advisor platforms, channel renewal, insurance value chain, enterprise risk management and compliance, and payments. Through a combination of Microsoft- and partner-provided solutions, customers enable their employees to turn data into insight, transform ideas into action and turn change into opportunity.
More information about Microsoft’s Financial Services Group can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/financialservices.
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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Microsoft Banking Integration Factory Partner Support Quote Sheet
“Microsoft and ARGO share the same goals of helping banks reduce operational expenses and allowing them to increase the speed at which they help their customers, ultimately improving brand retention and profitability. By participating in this relationship, we are able to offer our customers multiple avenues to address their business needs.”
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Dave Perkowski
Vice President
Systems Development
ARGO Data Resource Corp.
“The seamless integration of a financial institution’s various delivery channel technologies is key to delivering a superior customer experience. By participating in the Banking Integration Factory, we can streamline our integration with other best-of-breed providers to enable our clients to better interact with their customers across all their interaction channels.”
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Chris Brooks
Chief Technology Officer
Corillian Corp.
“Microsoft’s Banking Integration Factory is ideal for Getronics because it allows us to concentrate on improving user experience at various points across the multiple delivery channels. Our multidimensional branch automation solution will help reduce overall technology costs while interoperating smoothly with other systems.”
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Paul Jameson
Vice President
Financial Business Solutions
Getronics
“By participating in Microsoft’s Banking Integration Factory framework, we can enhance the interoperability between applications from disparate participating vendors, leveraging Microsoft platform technologies and using standards agreed upon by the participants. This benefits financial institutions by improving the user experience, reducing integration complexity and volatility.”
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Dan Larlee
Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer
Harland Financial Solutions Inc.
“Large banks have spent millions of dollars on channel technologies to help with data aggregation and channel silo complexity. Our relationship with Microsoft will benefit banking customers by allowing them to build upon their existing systems and providing them with a single source for totally integrated, enterprisewide automation systems.”
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Tony Wormington
President
Jack Henry & Associates Inc.