Microsoft Corp. today announced at Sibos 2008 that it is signing a global partnership agreement with the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transactions (SWIFT).Microsoft said Monday that it will work to make its technology more compatible with the global, interbank payments network operated by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transactions (SWIFT).
The announcement signifies a new, higher level of close cooperation between the organizations, under which they will work together to deliver deep industry value and simplify SWIFTNet implementation for customers using Microsoft technology.
It is a mutual, commercially based agreement between the organizations and will open further opportunities for financial service providers and midsized to large corporations to quickly and easily connect to SWIFT.
"The dynamics of financial messaging are changing as institutions look toward technology as a competitive differentiator," said Amanda Westwood, global head of SWIFT's customer service division. "SWIFT customers demand flexible messaging platforms that are cost effective to implement and integrate with their existing systems. The continued work Microsoft does to support SWIFTNet integration and SWIFTSolutions partners goes even further toward helping expand these solutions for our customers both within organizations and across boundaries. We expect our global partnership to promote additional adoption of SWIFT connectivity and SWIFTSolutions in the future."
The development of a SWIFT partner ecosystem will be an important aspect of the global partnership. Microsoft is providing a solid and highly secure foundation on which an expanded set of trusted industry partners can build and implement solutions for SWIFT and deliver stronger solutions for customers. It will also increase the choices available to customers, enabling them to better compete through more flexible and scalable financial messaging solutions.
As a respected voice in the area of payments technology, and demonstrating its further commitment to both SWIFT and its international partner ecosystem, Microsoft has, for the fifth year running, achieved the SWIFTReady Financial EAI Label for 2008 for BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT, which will be included in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009.
"We are constantly listening to our customers' feedback, and what we're hearing from the financial services marketplace today is that they are looking to Microsoft, as a respected leader in enabling payments solutions, to provide increased flexibility beyond core SWIFT offerings," said David Vander, worldwide managing director of Banking at Microsoft. "
With BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT we are enabling fast and easy system interoperability from bank systems to payments networks, thereby helping ensure that customers receive the best possible solution to their business issues, whatever their approach to payments may be. Microsoft continues to collaborate and invest in a trusted community of partners to develop an ecosystem of payments solutions.
A number of these partners are represented here at Sibos, including SWIFT, CashFac, DATALOG, Decillion, EastNets, Expertus, Fiserv NetEconomy, Nimbus, SAGA, SMA Financial, SunGard and XSP, all of which support the development of innovative, cost-effective, mission-critical solutions that will deliver deep industry value for customers and more effectively meet their payments needs globally."
Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 with BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT will enable financial institutions to access a comprehensive set of SWIFT solutions and support for protocols, including adapters for SWIFTNet FileAct and InterAct, which provide connectivity between Microsoft BizTalk Server and the SWIFT secure IP network. It also includes business activity monitoring, providing operations managers and business analysts with enhanced visibility into transactions. As well, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 will offer extended support of ISO 20022 message repairs, from correcting simple FIN messages to addressing the needs of MX- and ISO 20022-based Extensible Markup Language (XML) messages.
"With more than 8,200 customers today, Microsoft BizTalk Server leads the markets as a solution for enterprise connectivity, enabling integration across our customers' diverse set of heterogeneous systems, line-of-business applications, mainframes and trading partners," said Robert Wahbe, corporate vice president of the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft. "The Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 release further extends our commitment to ISO 20022 standards and will make it even easier for Microsoft and its partners to build solutions for SWIFT connectivity."
In September 2008, Microsoft also committed to help drive modeling into mainstream use and announced membership in the standards body Object Management Group (OMG). OMG's modeling standards include the Unified Modeling Language(TM) (UML(R)) and Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), and Microsoft will take an active role in numerous OMG working groups to help contribute to the open industry dialogue and assist with evolution of the standards to meet mainstream customer needs. This move is a continuation of the company's strong commitment to industry standards and will enable its financial services partners and customers over time to more easily support new industry transaction models.
About Microsoft in Financial ServicesMicrosoft's Financial Services Group helps financial firms leverage technology to amplify the impact their people can deliver to drive business success. We help our customers in banking, capital markets and securities, and insurance achieve four business outcomes: develop relationships, drive innovation, improve operations and build connections. To do this, we focus our products and technologies, and our work with leading solutions, services and hardware partners, on key areas where we believe we and our partners can deliver exceptional value. Those areas include advisor platforms, channel renewal, core banking, insurance value chain, investment management, risk management and compliance, and payments. For more information, visit http://www.microsoft.com/financialservices .
