Gates will lead with customer, new business and go-to-market plans for the sales organizations in the UK, France and Spain. He will be a part of the European management team with primary responsibility and focus upon the growth of Chordiant in Europe in 2005.

Prior to joining Chordiant, Gates was the MD (International) of Carreker Ltd. While there, he grew the qualified sales pipeline seven-fold in less than two years through targeted account and solution management together with a more proactive alliance program. Before that, Gates spent four years as the head of the financial services practice at Deloitte Consulting and a further four years in the same position with SAP UK. For both Deloitte and SAP, Gates led the divisions from a standing start to market leadership positions by selling into top UK and European banks such as Lloyds TSB, RBoS, Barclays, Dresdner KW and Munich Re.

"Simon Gates brings with him a very strong network of contacts across Chordiant's core sectors: retail banking, investment banking and insurance markets," said Stephen Kelly, CEO. "He has demonstrated a consistent ability to develop high performance, successful sales teams - and we're absolutely delighted that he will bring those skills to bear on Chordiant's European operations to continue our growth in this crucial area."

Commenting upon his appointment, Gates said: "Chordiant is already an established provider of software and services in Europe, but I am delighted to join at a time when there is a real emphasis upon growth into sectors where I have demonstrated a very strong track record."

Separately, Chordiant Software, Inc. today announced a next-generation, process-driven, branch teller application that enables global retail banks to deliver a multi-channel, customer-centric, front office banking solution. Chordiant Teller complements Chordiant’s existing solutions for the branch platform, enabling retail banks to renew aging systems with an integrated branch solution.

Chordiant's new solution offers integrated bank-specific branch processes between the teller and the platform with point of sale hand-off. As a result, branch tellers are equipped to offer customers full service rather than just managing cash transactions, and can capture new business opportunities at the point of interest. This significantly increases the ability to retain customers, increase product uptake and grow revenue. Chordiant Teller provides an improved experience for consumers, as they benefit from better, consistent and efficient quality of service. Banks can also obtain more value from customer facing representatives who now have an improved, consistent knowledge of the customer and their individual requirements.

"Branch renewal goes beyond pure functionality efficiency," said Isabella Fonseca, senior analyst at Celent, an independent organization dedicated to providing advice to financial services firms. "Branches should undertake a transformation strategy that leverages technology investments to shift the approach from transactional efficiency toward greater customer service, which in turn will improve their chances for revenue opportunities. Chordiant is addressing the needs of leading retail banks looking to renew their branch systems within the context of a fully process-driven, integrated, multichannel, customer-centric environment."

Chordiant Teller provides a complete range of processes that automate branch and teller transactions, servicing and administration. This includes cash and non-cash transactions, cash drawer management, electronic journaling, AM/PM processing, override limits, transaction management, and online/offline management. The solution supports batching and settlement activity, as well as core money services, desktop administration, foreign currency services and administration. It provides full support for existing peripheral devices such as card readers, printers, check readers and pin pads, and new devices including smart cards. Chordiant Teller also provides a real-time view of individual customer histories of all transactions and interactions, and may be integrated with both the branch platform and other core banking systems and product lines.

"Many retail banks are facing the challenge of upgrading their branch systems." said Nigel Pinches, IBM EMEA Director for Multi-Channel Banking Transformation. "It is clear that they seek supporting solutions that not only enable branches to be more productive, but also more responsive to changing customer needs and legislative pressures. Chordiant is delivering additional business functionality for the multichannel environment, and the announcement of Chordiant Teller significantly enhances their ability to deliver with IBM the on demand front office capability."

This new Chordiant application enables integrated customer processes across the branch and other channels. It integrates customer information on the teller desktop at the point of interaction without creating data replication / synchronization issues for IT. The solution enables the transfer and hand-off of specific customer interactions to co-workers (as required) to complete processes efficiently and effectively. It also provides the ability to complete an audit trail of processes to show compliance and reduce fraud.

"With the launch of Chordiant Teller, we're ushering in the next generation, process-driven, front office for leading global retail banks," says Don Morrison, president of Chordiant. "This is a breakthrough they have been looking for to replace their isolated branch office systems with integrated process-driven solutions that can help deliver the promise of a multi-channel retail distribution strategy. Chordiant has stepped up to meet this challenge with a significant investment in retail financial services, offering a well-differentiated solution."

Chordiant Teller integrates with Chordiant's suite of business process-driven solutions that include Card Servicing, Contact Center Servicing, Marketing and Self Serve. Like Chordiant's other front office banking solutions, Chordiant Teller is a process-driven, component-based application that decouples business logic and enables its re-use across channels to promote consistent customer service and a unified view of the customer.

Leveraging an industry-standard, service-oriented architecture, Chordiant Teller is based on a high performance and scalable business process management system, which drives the teller desktop. This approach increases business automation and teller productivity since the application executes the bank's unique processes and is tightly integrated with its existing core systems. It can also speed up customer deployments and centralize business process logic to improve business agility and regulatory compliance.

Running on industry standard application servers, Chordiant Teller can support a range of zero administration and other desktop environments, and supports multiple operating environments, including Linux, Grid Computing, and desktop environments such as thin clients, portals and rich clients. Chordiant solutions also leverage existing data, applications, processes, components and other IT resources, which further drive down total cost of ownership.