Microsoft Corp has joined with TietoEnator and three leading banks in the Nordic region – Nordea, OP Bank Group and Sampo plc – to implement a secure and efficient corporate-to-bank connectivity solution and service for transactions and payments.
The package, to be developed by TietoEnator, will facilitate secure and easy automated payments processing between corporations and banks and will meet the requirements of SEPA as set out by the European Commission and European Central Bank.
The corporate-to-bank solution will adopt ISO 20022 and industry open standards, including eXtensible markup language (XML), simple object access protocol (SOAP) and web services. The implementation will be based on Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 and Windows Communication Framework (WCF), providing corporate customers with an internet-based connectivity between corporates and banks.
“With the pressure on corporates to save costs and increase efficiencies, corporate-to-bank proprietary networks are no longer economically viable,” said Sheida Hadji-Ashrafi, industry manager for financial messaging at Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). “With a standardised solution, European banks can provide corporates with a low-cost communication.”