By integrating Itemfield ContentMaster, including a library of pre-built SWIFT transformations, with Informatica PowerCenter, the bank will replace manual coding methods with a faster and more efficient automated solution that will speed time-to-market for financial applications and enhance the bank's existing data integration and communication system. Itemfield ContentMaster is the only software to automate the transformation of complex data, enabling organizations to significantly reduce the expense of business integration and streamline the exchange of diverse information across the enterprise and with counterparties.

A leader in the European financing market, Paris-based Natexis Banques Populaires is also at the forefront in the adoption of advanced technologies to automate financial transactions and processes. Said Avram Kornberg, Natexis US Chief Information Officer, "As one of France's largest retail banking networks with a growing footprint in the United States, we look to the effective use of technology to help us gain competitive advantage." The company uses Informatica PowerCenter as its standard platform for data warehousing and data integration. However, this does not include the generation of messages in the highly complex but essential SWIFT standard. The SWIFT standard is used by more than 7,000 financial organizations worldwide to exchange financial messages such as letters of credit, payments and security transactions with other institutions. Before implementing Itemfield, Natexis had relied on manual programming to generate valid SWIFT messages based on data from financial applications and customer information systems. "Manual coding is expensive and introduces several potential sources of error" said Kornberg. "Every time we added a message or trading partner it required additional work which increased our costs and delayed the introduction of new applications." To address these issues, Natexis needed a solution capable of rapid and cost effective generation of SWIFT messages from existing applications.

After evaluating several alternatives, Natexis chose Itemfield based on its ability to rapidly deliver an embedded SWIFT transformation capability integrated with the Bank's existing Informatica implementation. Built on next-generation data transformation technology, Itemfield ContentMaster simplifies business integration by allowing any form of enterprise data, including structured, semi-structured and unstructured data, to be transformed to any other format in a single automated environment. The solution Itemfield delivered for Natexis features Itemfield's comprehensive library of standard SWIFT transformations that enables all types of SWIFT message formats to be created or parsed automatically. Made possible by a unique specification-driven data transformation technology, Itemfield's transformation libraries provide support for large message and/or transaction sets, industry standards including ACORD, HL7, EDI, and private standard specifications. Integrated with Informatica PowerCenter, the Itemfield solution extends the utility of PowerCenter to encompass complex and unstructured data formats.

The Itemfield solution is currently being implemented to automate the generation of SWIFT messages pertaining to financial institution transfers. The work now being done with ContentMaster will be completely re-usable to facilitate subsequent Natexis initiatives and applications around the SWIFT standard. The bank also plans to extend its use of Itemfield to automate the generation of messages pertaining to securities settlement and documentary credits and guarantees.

"Together, Itemfield and Informatica have will enable us to achieve automated transformation across data of all types, including both structured data and highly complex SWIFT messages, within a single environment," said Kornberg "Itemfield extends the utility of our existing Informatica implementation while speeding the introduction of new applications at a much lower cost than before."

Said Tony Rodoni, Itemfield VP North American Operations, "As financial institutions strive to reduce cost and enable straight through processing, Itemfield's ability to enable transformations based on internal proprietary formats and industry standards helps accelerate project delivery and reduce the cost of internal and business partner integration. Together with Informatica, we will help Natexis and other financial institutions make greater use of their existing applications and data warehouses."