Microsoft has announced the “full availability” of its BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT. It is a software application that supports SWIFT messaging.
The Accelerator was first unveiled at SIBOS 2003 in Singapore October, and is already being used by clients that include Siemens KAG and Nicholas-Applegate Capital Management.
Siemens KAG, a fund manager, is using BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT as part of an automation solution developed by European consultancy COMIT Gruppe. The solution automates financial messaging to and from custodians over the SWIFT network.
“The combination of Microsoft BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT and the COMIT solution provides us with a more-secure EAI system that automates our trade process,” says Dr. Josef Mehl, head of Administration Securities at Siemens KAG. “This means guaranteed message delivery and robust handling of statuses and business errors – saving us time and money.”
BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT supports SWIFT interfaces and SWIFT messages, both FIN and Extensible Markup Language (XML).
“With the BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT, the financial community has even more access to technology that is simple to implement and lowers the cost to connect to SWIFT,” adds Johan Kestens, the marketing executive at SWIFT. “We feel that it is just such advances in technology that will be important to achieve SWIFT’s goal: a completely automated financial services value chain.”
The solution includes the so-called Payments Toolkit, designed to integrate with existing industry standards, including RosettaNet Payments, to enable the automation of corporate-to-bank payments using the SWIFT payment initiation and cash-reporting XML standards. It also supports the migration and interface requirements for all new SWIFT services.
“Microsoft has worked with SWIFT and other strategic partners such as Unisys to reduce the cost of SWIFT implementations for financial institutions,” explains Josh Weisberg, senior product manager for E-Business Servers at Microsoft. “The BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT provides industry leading performance, time-to-value, and ease of implementation for SWIFT and other financial messaging needs.”
Peter Tripp, global practice leader for Microsoft eBusiness Servers at Unisys, says Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 and the BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT provide a robust financial messaging platform. “BizTalk Server 2004 powerfully complements the Unisys 3D Visible Enterprise, an innovative approach to understanding the cause-and-effect relationships between business vision, business operations and the IT systems that support them,” he says. “Having this capability s key to reducing the risks associated with implementing new technologies.”
BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT will be available in late April.