IBM and Nordea today announced a joint initiative to speed up adoption of SWIFTNet. Under an agreement that covers Identrus PKI security and SWIFT’s TrustAct Internet based messaging and applications infrastructure, the initial focus will be on payments initiation. IBM will work with Nordea to implement a banking interface for businesses seeking a solution for international payments initiation over the Internet using Identrus based authentication.
The infrastructure will enable businesses to cover the entire business-to-business value chain from order to high value payment accomplishment. Messages concerning financial services are collected from the B2B information flows and passed on to banks adding functions either to existing industry standards like Papinet or Rosettanet or to newer financial messaging standards from SWIFT.
“The commitment of Nordea and the financial community to SWIFT, Identrus and e-payments is testimony to the cost-savings that banks and their customers can expect to gain from integrating procurement and financial processes over the Internet,” said Alec Nacamuli, Global Payments Executive, IBM Financial Services Sector. “Widespread industry acceptance of advanced e-commerce solutions has so far been held back by the complex integration challenges being experienced at the corporate end. This initiative is another example of how IBM is helping financial institutions to overcome these difficulties, thereby enabling them to meet their customers’ demands for secure web-based.”
“The solution allows customers to tightly integrate commercial processes, authentication and payment traffic,” said Bo Harald, head of Electronic Banking at Nordea. “As an international company IBM can support businesses moving their procurement and other processes to the Internet environment. Adopting this solution is easy for companies as our partners take care of system-to-system integration work.”
This announcement coincides with the launch of WebSphere Business Integration for Financial Networks (WBI-FN). A new IBM solution that helps to connect internal firm networks to external networks, WBI-FN supports backend payments and securities messaging through SWIFTNet FIN and InterAct, as well as front-end payment message processing for trusted e-payments initiation.
The agreement between IBM and Nordea extends IBM’s support for Identrus, the global standard for B2B e-commerce trust and user authentication. In August, IBM announced that it was opening the world’s first “Identrus Ready” applications testing laboratory and was deploying a global team of integration services experts to implement and support the Identrus global trust system. Many IBM products, including its WebSphere e-infrastructure software, DB2 Universal Database, and eServer hardware, have been used by banks in delivering Identrus-enabled services to their customers.
IBM Payment Services for financial institutions from IBM Global Services, part of IBM’s “trusted e-payments” solutions, helps customers implement global standards across a four-corner model for trusted e-payments transaction that includes the buyer, seller and the two banks that are part of each transaction. IBM Global Services will also accelerate transaction handling through e-payment and electronic validation services, and integrate legacy processes with these new solutions to help control costs.