Mercator Software, Inc. announced it successfully helped Bank of Bermuda comply with the new ISO 15022 messaging standard ahead of the SWIFT deadline. The new standard required financial institutions that handle securities messages through the SWIFT network be able to receive the new ISO 15022 message formats by November 2001. Financial institutions need to be able to send as well as receive the new message format by November 2002.
Bank of Bermuda is one of the world’s leading suppliers of trust, administration, and banking and custody services to investment managers and financial institutions, with a network spanning 15 of the world’s key financial centers.
Mercator’s involvement is part of a wider integration project initiated by Bank of Bermuda’s Information Systems Division, which encompasses the bank’s business applications globally.
Rick Fletcher, application integration manager within the Information Systems Division at Bank of Bermuda, said: “Choosing Mercator was an easy decision. The initial phase of the project has been running smoothly since July, and we are very pleased with the results so far.”
Phase one of the Bank of Bermuda project, using Mercator Integration Broker technology to improve straight through processing between the bank’s custody platform, Trustware, and the SWIFT network, went live in July 2001. As a result, more than 90% of incoming trade instructions and confirmations are now processed without manual intervention. Phase two of the project, the introduction of the ISO 15022 message standards for securities processing, was also completed on schedule.
The bank’s long-term goal is to establish an application integration facility built on an architecture developed for Bank of Bermuda’s particular business needs. This will include re-engineering up to 170 interfaces between applications, which will help speed transactions, reduce the complexity of interfaces, and reduce costs.
“We are delighted with what we have achieved using Mercator Integration Broker,” said Martin Lancaster, head of global operations at Bank of Bermuda. “We have delivered two major initiatives on time and on budget thanks to Mercator. The fact that the product has been introduced so smoothly says a lot about the product itself – and the vendor supportavailable to us during the critical phases of implementation.”
Mark Register, president of Mercator International, commented: “Mercator has helped numerous financial organizations migrate to the new SWIFT ISO 15022 messaging standard. Our successful track record and close working relationship with SWIFT mean we are ideally placed to assist a major financial institution such as Bank of Bermuda with this crossover.”