The upgrades allow clients to achieve greater flexibility and efficiency in payments processing.

IBM's WebSphere Business Integration for Financial Networks, V1.2 for Z/OS (WBI-FN), supports centralized payments based on services-oriented architecture (SOA) principles and Internet standards. WBI-FN – which provides a single window to SWIFTNet - also adds extra capabilities for SWIFT's FileAct and InterAct functions, as well as smart-message bulking and routing services.

Smart-message technology allows WBI-FN to collect multiple messages and send them as one transaction, saving costs; and to offer direct, intra-bank messaging for messages sent within the enterprise.

Financial institutions can use this IBM suite to build a flexible payments infrastructure that eliminates redundancies and reduces costs. The solution helps firms effectively manage the changing economics of the payments business -- increased volume with lower revenue per transaction. It also helps keep pace with a growing regulatory burden that is forcing banks to reexamine their current siloed payments applications and transform to a more flexible infrastructure that can enhance business compliance.

'Enterprise Bus' Enables Broad, Strategic Functionality

IBM WebSphere SOA technologies allow clients to build next-generation payments infrastructure now. IBM’s componentized payment offerings take advantage of the powerful capabilities provided by the "Enterprise Payments Bus" the connecting rod of a WebSphere-based, shared-services payments solution and the foundation of WebSphere Business Integration for Financial Networks. The Enterprise Payment Bus supports comprehensive application functions from IBM business partners.

Commitment to Standardization in Future Releases

"IBM is working to further strengthen our leadership in the area of payments, with a series of planned enhancements concerning SOA, web services and standards, including the XML-based ISO 20022 protocol that is so important to the SWIFT community," said John Mesberg, VP, IBM Software Group, Financial Services. "IBM will incorporate support for the ISO20022 message standard into future releases of its WebSphere Payments middleware products since it provides a "lingua franca" for enterprises in any country to communicate payment messages in a cost-effective manner."

WebSphere technologies leverage IBM's Information FrameWork (IFW) for the banking industry, a comprehensive set of business models which represent "best practice" in financial services. The IFW business models provide standardized business processes and services definitions which can be used to address challenges such as provisioning a services-oriented architecture.

IBM continues to lead the way in SOA as the only vendor that delivers the vision, strategy, tools, training and full range of services necessary to ensure successful implementations for financial services firms of any size.

IBM offers the banking industry a holistic solution to the challenges in payments. In addition to market-leading software, IBM's comprehensive advisory, consulting and implementation services bring best practices to address the wide-ranging issues in payments. IBM's highly acclaimed "Component Business Modeling" technique uniquely links business and technical requirements to enable the creation of a business architecture that can be translated effectively into application, system and infrastructure components. By leveraging IFW, which encapsulates industry best practices in over 200 institutions, IBM can more quickly and efficiently help banks put in place a lower cost, more flexible infrastructure to adapt to the growing challenges in payments.

SEE IBM AT SIBOS BOOTH # A052; PARTNERS A050 – A059

OTHER IBM SIBOS HIGHLIGHTS:

New functionality from WebSphere Datastage TX and QualityStage products, which allow for seamless transformation of data to integrate various payment message types into and out of canonical forms (e.g. ISO20022), as well as the capability to intelligently enrich messages.

Technology demo on Message Administration Facility based on WebSphere Portal Server - allows for manual entry, repair and administration of payment transaction messages in a secure and auditable manner based on leading edge portal server technology.

Emphasizing its commitment to the SWIFT community, IBM and ten key Business Partners will illustrate how they provide complementary expertise and technologies to deliver integrated payments solutions built on a standards-based Services Oriented Architecture. IBM's Business Partner "Neighborhood" is located in stands A050 to A059 in Hall A.