17 September 2009

As Sibos 2009 continues in Hong Kong an increasing number of partners are reporting the use of Microsoft technology as a crucial ingredient in both their solutions and business success.

Two such announcements involve cash management specialist Fundtech and payment processing consultancy ISTS Worldwide.

Fundtech and Microsoft took the opportunity at Sibos to introduce the SEPA Integration Suite. The idea is that by leveraging their existing payments infrastructure, banks will save time and money adding transaction processing capabilities for both SEPA Credit Transfers and SEPA Direct DebitS (SDD). The solution allows corporate clients to send a single stream of payments – in various formats – to a centralised payment service, streamlining their accounts payable operations and improving multi-country cash management visibility.

“SEPA has been a priority issue for European payments for years now, but it seems likely that a significant number of banks will still miss the November 2009 deadline for SDD,” said Gareth Lodge, regional research director at Tower Group. “As a result, banks not only have to be compliant but must have solutions that are as scalable and resilient as those for legacy payments.”

Banks not only have to be compliant but must have solutions that are as scalable and resilient as those for legacy payments

Gareth Lodge, Tower Group The new suite will be the first SEPA payments solution built entirely on the Microsoft platform. It uses Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and BizTalk Server 2009. Furthermore, its Web-enabled user interface is built with Silverlight technology.

In other Sibos news, ISTS announced that it will extend its use of the Microsoft technology stack to deliver payment processing solutions based on SQL Server 2008 and BizTalk Server 2009.

“At ISTS we seek to offer a fully integrated solution framework and believe that the advanced integration capabilities of BizTalk Server will provide the required interoperability and support for industry standards on a cost effective platform for our clients,” said Mustafa Shehabi, senior vice president of sales and marketing at ISTS Worldwide.

Susan Hauser, vice president of worldwide financial services at Microsoft commented: “At a time of cost-cutting and IT consolidation, the breadth of our platform and the commitments of ISTS and other payments technology leaders make Microsoft uniquely able to quickly enable participants in the payments value chain by connecting systems that drive new operational efficiencies and innovative customer experiences.”

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