Seven of the top 20 financial institutions in the United States and a couple of the top Canadian banks - including Bank of America, U.S. Bank, and Scotiabank - currently utilize S1 Trade Finance. These customers use S1 Trade Finance as an integrated system for creating and reporting on trade documents from purchase order and letters of credit, to open account transactions.

S1 Trade Finance now delivers new administrative, customer service and real-time reporting features that empower institutions worldwide to further expedite trade cycles, reduce processing costs and offer competitive services to gain new customers.

According to Lee Kidder, wholesale banking director at TowerGroup, "The trade finance market remains extremely large with international trade volume now more than $6 trillion annually - administrative costs alone to conduct trade transactions account for probably seven percent or $420 billion. Competition between banks and non-traditional trade players has become even more intense and is changing the trade landscape dramatically, forcing banks to find innovative ways to reduce risks and costs for their customers while optimizing the information those customers receive."

Deploying S1 Trade Finance 2.2 helps institutions more efficiently manage trade finance operations and get competitive products to market quickly. The solution, comprised of Import/Export Letter of Credit, Open Account, Standbys, Purchase Order Processing, Documentary Collections, and Reports modules, offers a number of key features including:

-- Flexible notification enables institutions to create and customize new types of event notifications based on specific customer needs;

-- Data archiving allows institutions to archive and un-archive up to seven years of data and ensure that customers auditing requirements are met;

-- Enhanced customer reporting offers complex filtering features, enabling customers to easily access the specific data they require. S1 Trade Finance also provides more than 200 base reports including the ability to run a balance report on all of their instruments, on any dates required;

-- Bank reporting enables administration and customer service representatives to run detailed reports on customer report usage and customer alert notifications;

-- Transaction routing functions that facilitate complex and multiple layers of approval between companies; and allows dynamic limit rules within the approval chain; and

-- Secure data fix functionality allows banks to resolve data discrepancies before information is presented to customers.

The integrated solution also provides institutions with a comprehensive customer service support system, quick and simple data entry key to high-volume customers, flexible security controls, such as detailed audit logging and entitlement-based workflow, and a secure email system to facilitate internal communications.

"S1 Trade Finance is the culmination of years working with the world's top tier trade banks and adapting the front office business model to reflect industry needs, such as Open Account and facilitating straight-through processing," said Ross McKay, vice president of product management at S1 Corporation. "With this latest release, we've further enhanced a proven, best-of-breed solution that is enabling institutions to expedite a full range of global trade services that strengthens the customer experience by providing critical information."