Financial Fusion, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sybase, is little known in SA, but the company is hoping to change that with the local launch of its straight through processing messaging solutions.
Vince Neale, practice manager alliance group UK, says the company provides integrated financial solutions to more than 200 financial institutions (150 in wholesale banking and 50 in Web and wireless banking).
Global alliance partners include IBM, Sun Microsystems and SWIFT.
While the focus is on two verticals: Web/wireless banking and wholesale banking, it is gearing its first thrust in SA to wholesale banking connectivity. "Of course we wouldn't turn away business in Web banking," Neale adds.
"But banks are not ready yet to hear how inexpensive it could be. They have spent a lot on developing portals to go to the Web, and these were designed around their own systems. We have to wait for banks to feel the pain."
He says the solutions support protocols such as SWIFTNet FIX, SWIFT, GSTP and Omgeo as well as proprietary protocols.
"We are also building out into various stock exchanges. We have Crest connectivity, New York Stock Exchange and Hong Kong, and we will soon also be announcing that we have Euronext."
He adds that having support for Crest will "make our products more palatable" in SA. Crest is the UK's paperless share settlement system, similar to SA's Strate.
"Financial institutions typically have some IT architectures, but they don't deliver much in terms of functionality, and therefore user benefit.
"Banks are complex environments. We are seeking to achieve simplification and lower costs, thus achieving return on investment in a shorter time frame, provided institutions take a long-term view on messaging."
Commenting on the recent depreciation of the rand, Neale says the company has to accept that it has to tailor pricing for different markets.
"But it is still worth it in the long run. We are increasing the visibility of Sybase in the marketplace and every time we do that it's a big tick in the box."
He adds that the product also delivers the company long-term revenue once it is installed.
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