Announced at SIBOS, the financial services industry's premier annual event, the solutions will combine the expertise of IBM's Global Business Services and Norkom's FCC software. Under the terms of the agreement, which spans software development, marketing and sales, both organizations have committed to develop new and innovative solutions to help meet client needs. To fuel this development, the two companies have already aligned research and development around the IBM InfoSphere Entity Analytic Solutions (EAS) portfolio including the IBM Relationship Resolution product.

The financial services industry experiences an estimated $19 billion in losses each year due to financial crimes. Compounding these losses is a fluid regulatory environment that has driven up operational costs by 43 percent annually.

As the recognized global leader in the provision of FCC software solutions, Norkom works with clients such as HSBC, Credit Agricole, ANZ, American Express and Washington Mutual to meet their business and regulatory requirements. Over the past two years, Norkom has enjoyed tremendous worldwide success and expansion into Australia, Asia and the Middle East, building on its market leading position in North America and Europe.

Paul Kerley, CEO of Norkom Technologies said, "Working with IBM will enable us to further expand our global footprint and enter new markets and geographies through IBM's vast network of global relationships. But the real winners will be our current and future clients within the global financial services sector.

Together with IBM, Norkom will deliver solutions, developed on leading-edge platforms, which will help financial organizations comply quickly and affordably with regulatory requirements and defend against operational and reputation risk and loss posed by external and internal financial attacks."

"Our customers face monumental challenges for evolving risk management requirements and to defend against illegal activities. Incremental, siloed investments are expensive and ineffective in dealing with the growth and sophistication of multi-channel threats," said June Felix, general manager, global banking and financial markets, IBM. "We are pleased to partner with Norkom to help customers better defend against attack efficiently and effectively across the enterprise."