SWIFT Awards Gold Certification to Microsoft BizTalkAccelerator

Microsoft Corp. announced today at the Sibos 2004 conference that SWIFT has awarded Microsoft® BizTalk® Accelerator for SWIFT. The SWIFTReady Financial EAI Gold label is a milestone and significant reinforcement for Microsoft's approach to providing financial institutions with a cost-effective way to transfer payments and securities transactions, improve partner connectivity, and improve operational efficiencies.

"Against the confluence of events we're seeing in the industry, we're working to help our customers address three primary opportunities and challenges: risk, reputation and growth," said Bill Hartnett, general manager of Financial Service and Strategy Solutions at Microsoft.

Sekerbank has implemented BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT to manage SWIFT messages for international trade, funds management and capital markets transactions.

"Not only was the project in production in six months, but $100,000 has been saved by developing these applications using Microsoft technology," said Tanol Türkoglu, assistant general manager at Sekerbank.

The latest customers to take advantage of this technology include Sekerbank, a leading private commercial bank in Turkey, and Banco Español de Crédito SA (Banesto), a leading provider of commercial and corporate banking in Spain.

As the financial services industry looks for opportunities to automate more of its processes, better integrate across all trading partners, and replace aging and high-priced infrastructure, it also is entering a period of growth.