These new Service Domains will allow BIAN's community of 31 members, including Credit Suisse, UBS and ING, the ability to consume and implement the BIAN models. This comes as BIAN releases new findings of the banking industry's perception of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and its impact on the business of banking. 78% of banks expect SOA standards to reduce IT costs by at least 25%, with 44% expecting to experience a reduction of 50% in IT costs. All of the banks surveyed agreed that the adoption of SOA standards will increase their ability to compete in the current market.

From today, any bank or vendor will be able to incorporate the Service Domain definitions into their core banking implementations, allowing them to take advantage of these expected IT cost reductions - SunGard is already implementing and progressing its Ambit Core Banking system at Erste Group, one of the leading financial services provider in central and eastern Europe, based on the work in progress material. This production of tangible solutions marks a real milestone for BIAN and its members.

The Service Landscape is a blueprint for banks to develop architecture roadmaps that support flexible integration within existing application landscapes, as well as with external solutions. It breaks down banking functionality into discrete capabilities and defines service interfaces to those capabilities. Today, BIAN also launches an updated 'How To' guide, which provides guidance in applying SL 1.6. Following practitioner feedback, this guide has been completely rewritten to make it more accessible to non-members.

Steve Van Wyk, CIO of ING Bank and Chairman of the BIAN Board, said: "Release 1.6 is yet another big step for BIAN in our mission to shape the future of banking services. The collaboration amongst our member banks, vendors and service providers is building momentum in the deliverance of a tangible portion of our Service Landscape."

Van Wyk continueued: "BIAN has been making great progress on all fronts. Our membership numbers continue to expand and this delivery of the new Service Landscape not only allows members to really see the fruits of their labours, but also illustrates members' commitment to the BIAN roadmap. We are committed to delivering continued progress in a manner that our members can count on and benefit from in a tangible way."

The roadmap for BIAN is tracked over the next two years, with two updates to the Service Landscape anticipated. The next update will see an additional 50 Service Domains fully described; with the full set of Service Domains for core banking ready within the next 18 months. Once these core service domains have been brought online, the periphery 'business support' operations will also be defined, including HR, payroll and legal functionalities - this is expected in 2014.

Additional findings from BIAN's SOA study:
• 100% of banks agree that the adoption of SOA standards will increase their institutions' ability to compete
• 46.7% of software vendors and consultants expect SOA standards to reduce banks' IT costs by 10-25%
• 77.7% of banks expect SOA standards to reduce IT costs by at least 25%, with 44.4% expecting to experience a reduction of 50% in IT costs.