The award of this label by the SWIFT Partner Management Team provides an additional certification which assures clients that IT2 correctly creates and validates SWIFT messages relating to the three key treasury-bank communications requirements: bank balance and transaction statement imports, settlement management and confirmation management. The certification process rigorously tested that IT2 demonstrates compliance with SWIFT standards, messaging services and connectivity.



'SWIFT is delighted that IT2 has invested time and effort to secure SWIFTReady labelling', says Patrik Neutjens, Head of Partner Management, SWIFT. 'Today, there is increased interest in SWIFT due to the financial crisis and the credit crunch, with extended demands on the quality and timeliness of cash and risk management operations. The effective deployment of SWIFT depends on its integration with best practice third-party financial technology solutions such as IT2. There is therefore great benefit for our mutual clients in strengthening our business relationship with IT2, whose SWIFTReady label objectively demonstrates that it complements SWIFT's value proposition.'



IT2 currently supports corporate and financial institution clients who use SWIFT as their secure single integration platform for bank communications. IT2-SWIFT common clients include a range of global organisations such as BMC Software, Hunting plc, LCH.Clearnet, MF Global, Pirelli International, SABMiller plc and Tyco International. Some of these clients host and operate a direct connection with SWIFT Alliance, whilst others use a service bureau to manage SWIFT connectivity. In all cases, IT2 acts as a control hub to schedule, control, monitor, interpret and report on all information transfers with SWIFT.



The IT2 technical validation was performed using the brand new SWIFT connectivity option 'AutoClient', which is part of SWIFT Alliance Lite. IT2 certification therefore extends to Alliance Lite, so that Lite, so that IT2 is accredited for all relevant types of SWIFT connectivity, giving clients a full range of choice and flexibility in how they work with SWIFT.



Paul Higdon, IT2's Director of Product Management, explains some of the business issues that justified IT2's application for SWIFTReady labelling: 'SWIFT is an exceptionally strong technical solution for bank communications, through its powerful security controls, its availability performance (99.995% according to SWIFT) and 24/7 support service. SWIFT's range of connectivity options enables different types and sizes of corporate and FI treasury to cost-justify SWIFT integration, to take advantage of a single, uniform and dependable communications channel. IT2-SWIFT integration offers a very secure route to achieving several key business benefits. Treasuries use SWIFT as part of STP operations to achieve up-to-date visibility of the cash balances in the enterprise's bank accounts. Deals and payments are managed in a fully secure environment, helping to satisfy the increasingly strenuous demands of auditors, regulators and management. Furthermore, focus on counterparty exposure management has sharpened very notably in response to the financial crisis, and the automated availability of up-to-date bank account balances is now generally seen as an essential element in the accurate calculation of counterparty exposure. The financial crisis has elevated the importance of many of the core activities of treasury. IT2's SWIFTReady labelling helps our clients to demonstrate to their management that they are operating a best practice cash management solution.'