The event was attended by senior executives from 20 leading global banks who manage wholesale payments and foreign exchange settlement (CLS) systems. During the event, Fundtech conducted a live interactive survey, which resulted in real-time opinions on hot topics in the industry.

Issues surveyed at the forum comprised some of the key industry trends for 2004. Key findings of Fundtech's survey include:

-- 53% of the respondents expect to increase their spending on outsourced applications and processing over the next three years. This is consistent with recent research from TowerGroup that projects outsourcing in the payments segment to increase significantly faster than the overall industry with a predicted growth rate of 6.5%.

-- 45% of the respondents see Real-Time Nostro as the initiative with the biggest impact on their business in the long term.

-- 57% of the respondents are planning to use SWIFTNet beyond traditional FIN messages as of 2004/05. This could include cash reporting and FIX Services.

Other trends discussed at the Client Forum included:

-- Strategic cost management - the process of focusing human and financial resources on activities that will deliver a competitive advantage to customers. As it relates to IT spending, it means diverting spending from application development and maintenance into programs that will deepen customer loyalty, increase cross-sell and deliver service excellence.

-- Increasing importance of fee-generating services - and how banks are creating new revenue streams by offering their corporate clients more customized payment services to better meet their unique needs.

-- Customer Empowerment - empowering customers by offering self service systems in order to perform routine tasks, thus providing better and more timely customer service at a reduce cost to the bank.

"Our annual International Client Forum is an excellent opportunity for our clients and Fundtech to share ideas with each other," said Michael Sgroe, Fundtech's Chief Operating Officer. "This survey supports Fundtech's product strategy to expand outsourced services including our SWIFTNet service bureau," said Sgroe.