14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has offered a new example of its commitment to building a payments platform for customers using its technology through a partnership with Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The new agreement inked at Sibos 2008 between the Redmond company and SWIFT is designed to take to the next level the SWIFTNet implementation on Microsoft technology. Amanda Westwood, global head of SWIFT’s customer service division, welcomed the next step of the alliance between the two organizations as a way to ensure the growth of financial messaging platforms for existing SWIFT customers.
“We are constantly listening to our customers’ feedback, and what we’re hearing from the financial services marketplace today is that they are looking to Microsoft, as a respected leader in enabling payments solutions, to provide increased flexibility beyond core SWIFT offerings,” revealed David Vander, worldwide managing director of Banking at Microsoft. “With BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT we are enabling fast and easy system interoperability from bank systems to payments networks, thereby helping ensure that customers receive the best possible solution to their business issues, whatever their approach to payments may be.”
In this regard, the Redmond company indicated that Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 would include BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT which comes with the SWIFTReady Financial EAI Label for 2008. Robert Wahbe, corporate vice president of the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft, explained that BizTalk Server offers its 8,200 customers worldwide more than just an enterprise connectivity solution, also bringing together diversified heterogeneous systems and integrating with mainframes and even line-of-business applications.
“Microsoft continues to collaborate and invest in a trusted community of partners to develop an ecosystem of payments solutions. A number of these partners are represented here at Sibos, including SWIFT, CashFac, DATALOG, Decillion, EastNets, Expertus, Fiserv NetEconomy, Nimbus, SAGA, SMA Financial, SunGard and XSP, all of which support the development of innovative, cost-effective, mission-critical solutions that will deliver deep industry value for customers and more effectively meet their payments needs globally,” Vander added.