Fidelity National Financial, Inc. (NYSE:FNF) , a Fortune 500 provider of products and outsourced services and solutions to financial institutions and the real estate industry, and its Fidelity Information Services (Fidelity) division today announced the global availability of the world's first platform independent core banking solution adapted to the Java2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE) architecture and programming model.
With this addition to its suite of retail banking products, Fidelity can now offer financial organisations worldwide a next generation core banking solution regardless of their preferred hardware platform.
Corebank is Fidelity's component-based, true real-time, continuous core processing relational database solution for global banks. The Corebank J2EE version incorporates the same wide-ranging business functionality as the mainframe version to support the global marketplace. It is a strategic banking application that supports a wide range of customer, product build, deposit, lending and payment functionality for the retail banking environment.
The first implementation of Corebank J2EE was announced late last year with Suruga Bank Ltd adopting Corebank J2EE in order to effectively manage its customer information, deliver superior customer service and develop diverse financial products efficiently. The project at Suruga Bank also includes IBM's recently launched Core Systems Transformation solution (CST), a comprehensive approach to core systems renovation, which allows banks to migrate their back-office systems to modern solutions in a phased, risk-minimising manner. Corebank J2EE works within the CST framework to deliver a best-of-breed core banking application using a componentised implementation approach and exploiting the advantages of the CST transaction processing platform.
"We are delighted to be in the enviable position of launching a new technology solution to the international market - Corebank J2EE - with a customer already signed up and with an implementation project successfully moving forward," commented Jim Wilson, president, Fidelity Information Services, International Division.
As financial services organisations look to refresh their core processing platform, Corebank's advanced technology infrastructure provides the flexibility to accommodate future changes in business and market focus. The application architecture employed by Corebank is extremely efficient at re- using software components thereby reducing complexity, maintenance effort and development risk.
"Many banks are looking for solutions to replace legacy systems that can be introduced without delay, with significantly decreased implementation risk and that will improve operational efficiency and deliver business value quickly," said Wilson. "This solution allows financial organisations to select the system configuration most appropriate for their business strategy and system scale."
The successful completion of Corebank J2EE was achieved working in close partnership with IBM. It marks the culmination of a collaborative effort to bring a solution to the marketplace that was based on open standards and could support the entire breadth of the J2EE specification. Rather than relying on proprietary tools, Corebank has chosen to rely on IBM's wealth of knowledge with application platform technologies. The Corebank development team continues to work closely with IBM's Software Group to fully exploit IBM's flagship WebSphere software and eServer hardware. Corebank's architecture design allows the Corebank business components to remain unaffected by changes in the underlying infrastructure while continuing to exploit additional capabilities as J2EE evolves.
"We have been delivering world-class core processing applications and services for over 40 years and we pride ourselves on meeting our commitments to our customers and the marketplace," added Wilson.
Seperately, Empower, part of the Fidelity Information Services division of Fidelity National Financial (NYSE:FNF) and a leading provider of software solutions to the lending community, and ComplianceEase, a division of LogicEase Solutions Inc., a premier provider of regulatory compliance and risk management solutions to the financial services industry, announce a strategic partnership that integrates ComplianceEase's automated compliance solution into the Fidelity Empower mortgage origination system.
As the most powerful automated compliance tool on the market, ComplianceEase's ComplianceAnalyzer (CA) provides exceptional response times and accurate audit results, features that are critical in today's fast moving and demanding regulatory environment. By leveraging the Empower platform, lenders can simply and cost-effectively access the CA tool from within Empower's loan origination system.
"We are excited about our partnership with Empower," said David Girling, executive vice president of ComplianceEase. "With this connectivity, users can seamlessly access our automated compliance solution from within the Empower environment, via the click of a mouse or as an automatic trigger. This bypasses the integration challenges many lenders face, and enables them to immediately start auditing loans for compliance with ComplianceAnalyzer."
Empower's POS Desktop leverages existing Empower technology with direct access and integration with industry-leading Fidelity products and services, including flood determinations, real estate tax service, Automated Valuation Models (AVMs), credit reports and the industry's premier loan servicing platform, Mortgage Servicing Package (MSP). The product is also approved and current with industry standard services offered by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and others.
"Integrating the ComplianceEase products into our loan origination system will provide a unique offering to the marketplace," said Gary Groshner, executive director of support systems at Empower. "This partnership with ComplianceEase is consistent with Empower's mission of providing innovative solutions to its clients. Access to ComplianceAnalyzer via the Empower platform supports the "one-stop-shopping" approach our customers prefer."
ComplianceAnalyzer, recognized as the industry-standard automated compliance solution, dramatically simplifies the audit workflow process, while utilizing advanced technology to ensure accuracy and integrity. The technology employs cutting edge analytics to automatically identify instances of non-compliance and explains them in reports. In a matter of seconds, the on-line system renders real time, transaction-based decisions, and automatically calculates a color-coded RiskIndicator indicating to users the level of risk of non-compliance.