Swisscom IT Services (Swisscom), a provider of ASP services to Swiss banks, has bought SunGard’s Mint Knowledge Broker to handle its interbank messaging requirements
Before the end of 2004, Switzerland’s banking industry has to migrate all of its x.25 SWIFT connections to the new SWIFTNet IP network. In addition, the SIC, euroSIC and SECOM domestic payments networks are similarly migrating from their x.25 platforms to IP, under a project named Finance IPNet. In order to cope with these changes, and with the potential addition of new SWIFTNet services, Swisscom and its clients have bought MINT.
“For Swisscom IT Services, a provider of a banking platform for several universal banks, the central and consolidated operations of multiple banks over one MINT Swiss Interbank Communication Solution was a key factor for our decision,” says Werner Zimmermann, head of banking solutions and member of the executive board at Swisscom. “SunGard Business Integration, with its MINT solution, is well established in Switzerland and used by many other banks. The possibility to add additional financial gateways to the MINT solution was another reason for our selection.”
SunGard says its MINT Multi-bank solution offers a consolidated operational solution on one platform. “This will help Swisscom IT Services to recognise a significant reduction in the cost of ownership as well as improving its overall STP rate because of better process automation,” claims the giant IT firm. “The ‘single-network multi-services’ SWIFTNet revolution has led many organizations to re-evaluate their network operations architecture. Economies of scale achieved by consolidating as many financial messaging services as possible into one network operations framework can reduce total cost of ownership and increase operational efficiency.”
“We are delighted at the decision by Swisscom IT Services to select SunGard’s MINT technology as its strategic SWIFTNet migration platform,” says Gerd Klask, managing director Central Europe, at SunGard Business Integration. “By adopting our ‘consolidated operations’ approach, Swisscom IT Services has addressed its short term SWIFTNet migration challenge as well as allowing investment protection for the future by having an open and scalable solution that supports a wide range of financial messaging standards.”