Integration suite announced for banking sector
Microsoft and Fundtech save banks time with new software
Fundtech and Microsoft today announced the introduction of the SEPA Integration Suite, a new suite of SOA (service-oriented architecture) services that adds complete SEPA transaction processing to a bank’s existing payments infrastructure.
By leveraging their existing payments infrastructure, banks will save time and money adding transaction processing capabilities for both SEPA Credit Transfers (SCT) and SEPA Direct Debits (SDD).
SEPA Direct Debit and Credit Transfers are a key issue in the development of payment systems in Europe, and the SEPA Integration Suite will be the first SEPA payments solution built entirely on the Microsoft platform. The infrastructure uses Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009, a widely deployed integration, messaging and business activity monitoring solution. Its Web-enabled user interface is built with Microsoft Silverlight technology, offering great flexibility and customization capabilities.
The SEPA Integration Suite supports multi-country deployments, and offers mandate management functionality. Its robust middleware transforms, organizes and routes transactions between legacy and SEPA formats using ISO 20022 XML messaging standards.
“SEPA has been the 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 TowerGroup. “As a result banks not only have to be compliant but have solutions that are as scalable and resilient as those for legacy payments. Standards-based integration solutions will allow banks to leverage as much of their existing systems as possible to minimize both cost but also risk.”
“Fundtech and Microsoft are offering the market an affordable and quickly implemented solution that addresses the eurozone harmonization dilemma related to SEPA payments. By leveraging existing payments infrastructure, banks using SEPA Integration Suite will be able to meet the SDD deadline while minimizing the expense of adding this required capability,” said Dieter Prang, managing director, Fundtech Gmbh.
