"This is now the sixth year we have received this valuable quality 'kitemark', the highest award in the financial industry for integration solutions," confirms CTO, Andreas Wagner, "and reflects CSK's strong association with SWIFT. In X-Gen we have the ideal EAI solution for helping banks and financial services companies integrate their IT systems and communicate more effectively with counterparties and service providers, thus automating their processes and reducing operational risk."

Wolfgang Kneilmann, CSK's vice president of sales and marketing agrees and adds: "We have worked hard to earn the SWIFT Gold Label for 2004 as early as possible, as it has become the decisive selection criterion and quality standard in financial markets. We are therefore proud to be one of the very first SWIFT solution providers to have succeeded this year."

CSK continues to work closely with SWIFT in expanding the adoption of SWIFTNet, which provides a broader range of fast, interactive messaging services over a reliable, secure IP network, including cash management, bulk payments services and securities settlement transactions.

"We recognise and appreciate the enthusiasm and professionalism shown by CSK to ensure the labelling of its X-Gen product suite in 2004," says Olivier Roucloux, EAI market analyst, SWIFT. "We also look forward to exploring new opportunities together to make sure CSK's application evolves toward a leading SWIFTNet single-window integration platform."

The final word is with CSK's Wagner: "Those organisations that migrate strategically to SWIFTNet will reap significant rewards in improving rates of straight-through processing and managing their business more efficiently," he says. "As part of this, brokers, dealers and custodians alike can be confident that, at CSK, we will continue to support their message flows and broader connectivity and process automation needs."