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Financial institutions getting ready for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, or SWIFT, migrations can look to IBM for help with the latest iteration of its WebSphere Business Integration software.
Big Blue announced yesterday the general availability of its WebSphere Business Integration for Financial Networks 1.1 that includes enhancements for easier SWIFT migrations. Business Integration for Financial Networks provides a high-volume financial messaging processing platform that enables message consolidation for SWIFT and other networks.
SWIFT is a financial messaging network that handles international payments and securities messages for its 7,000 financial institution members.
The SWIFT consortium announced in December 2000 that it would change from supporting the X.25 network standard to supporting an Internet Protocol.
The result: SWIFT IP Network, developed to help reduce network communication costs and help companies better turn around payments and trades.
Now financial institutions that use SWIFT face a fast-looming deadline of December 2004 to migrate their financial messaging applications to the new network.
To help companies meet the deadline IBM has added with 1.1 new operating environment support for IBM AIX and Sun Solaris, as well as support for non-MERVA customers.
Additionally, 1.1 includes a new single window through which various financial applications can gain access to networks. This facilitates the reuse of message processing services and centralized customization and control for some functions.
The upgrade also enables infrastructure sharing among multiple financial institutions, branches or departments.
Along with version 1.1, IBM also introduced its Jumpstart program to help get the ball rolling in IT departments as they prepare for SWIFT IP migrations.
Starting under $100,000, Jumpstart comprises two major components: an assessment workshop to build an implementation project plan, and a sample tested customized environment, with one instance, server and organizational unit.