The addition of many significant enhancements, including real-time Management Dashboards, combines the latest technology and financial know-how to deliver out-of-the-box best practice management reporting and treasury process control.

IT2 6.0 will be delivered to existing clients and is available to new clients with a suite of management reports based on accepted treasury best practices. The suite includes Future Funding Management, Debt Portfolio Management, Cash Investment Portfolio Management, and FX Transaction Exposure Management.

IT2 6.0 also includes a suite of Treasury Process Maps which provide documented transparency and control of treasury management processes, simplifying compliance with regulatory requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley.

IT2 Management Dashboards combined with IT2 Treasury Process Maps provide the most technologically advanced tools for treasury integration, process management and decision making available on the market. IT2 6.0 is the first treasury management system to integrate Treasury Policy, Procedures, Reporting and Compliance.

The addition of Treasury Process Maps in earlier versions of IT2 enabled IT2 users to move their focus above transaction processing to management reporting. With IT2 6.0 Management Dashboards enable our clients to automate management reporting and move their focus to decision making.

IT2 6.0 also sees the launch of the IT2 Communications Server which offers a complete range of secure and controlled proactive push and pull processes. The IT2 Communication Server provides the very best treasury integration solutions available. This strengthens IT2's integration capabilities in line with increasing demand for IT2 solutions from financial institutions.

Funded by more than 50 new clients in the last 3 years, SimCorp's research and development investment in IT2 delivers extensive value for our clients. The platform and technology is the most modern available, the business capability is cutting edge.

Separately, FTSE-250 investment companies, the Alliance Trusts have licensed the SimCorp Dimension investment management system to support the management of their assets, totaling more than £2.7 billion. The companies have ordered back office modules that will support asset management processing, including trade processing, corporate actions, dividend processing and reporting.

The Alliance Trusts liked the system's ability to support all asset classes and multiple mandates. Since the Alliance Trusts have offices in the UK and Hong Kong, it was also important that the system was able to support the needs of the business in both locations.

"We wanted to ensure that the Trusts retained the flexibility to move in any direction in order to maximise value and benefit for our shareholders. That is very important to us," said Helen Weir, the Alliance Trusts project manager responsible for replacing the investment platform for the Alliance Trusts.

The Alliance Trusts conducted a thorough review of the market looking at about 20 different companies and short-listed three vendors before finally selecting SimCorp Dimension. In the final selection they looked at the system's flexibility, technical and functional capabilities and whether it could work with the supplier in partnership.

Weir said, "The SimCorp system will reduce the number of systems we use and give us one central view of the world. It will also automate a lot of the processes that we currently do manually, such as the processing of trades. We want our team to focus on the value-added activities such as handling exceptions and improving the timeliness and quality of information we provide to our senior managers."

The Alliance Trusts also anticipate benefits from more efficient operational risk management. The system’s audit trail tracks each stage of each process so any anomalies can be identified and resolved early in processing.

Implementation of the back office solution from SimCorp is due to be completed in mid-2006.