Germany's second largest commercial bank selects a platform for electronic processing of payment transactions for corporate clients
Monrovia, CA, and Neu-Isenburg, GERMANY — March 2, 2005 —
The HypoVereinsbank (HVB) Group, Germany's second largest commercial bank, said today that it has extended its use of SeeBeyond's product Integrated Composite Application Network (ICAN) suite to enable the automation of payment transactions.
With the new deployment, HVB aims to handle all payment transactions at high speed and low cost, and to provide the fastest possible customized electronic banking connection for its business customers.
Since its successful launch of automatic request for transfer (RFT) processing, HVB has also implemented solutions for STP connection of settlements and corporate actions.
Cost cutting pressure, especially in the area of transactions, is forcing banks to focus on automation. A growing number of financial services providers are endeavoring to offer their national and international clients a comprehensive and centralized range of advanced transaction services. The advantage to bank customers, who are often obliged to simultaneously use a number of software products, is that in future they will only need to work with a single product for payment transactions.
To achieve its overall objective, HypoVereinsbank converted its existing processing system for SWIFT message type MT101 (request for transfer) to a new, largely automatic processing concept called the Main Entry Point, or "MEP." HVB Payments & Services GmbH, a subsidiary that has been handling all payment transactions for HVB since April 2003, is now managing the project.
The demands made on the HVB integration solution can be summed up in four main criteria: near-time processing, scalability, high availability and flexibility. The MT101 engine is designed for simultaneously processing several clients with throughput limited only by the capacity of the hardware used. Twenty-four-hour, seven-day operation is planned, and a backup system will be provided. The MEP will provide a main single entry point (MSEP), which will serve as a central, worldwide delivery point for all business customers' payment transactions.
"In evaluating a payment transaction platform, we selected SeeBeyond because the product suite garnered the highest score in our overall technology assessment; in particular, it scored high marks in terms of reusability, flexibility and scalability," said Robert Rieder, HVB Payments & Services GmbH, head of Business Development — International Cash Management.
HVB said one of its next steps will be to migrate its existing EDIFACT platform to the SeeBeyond infrastructure. In addition, client operations are to be initiated.
