Enterprise infrastructure company Sybase SA has announced the local availability of Financial Fusion, a suite of enterprise-class e-finance solutions which fuse applications and middleware on a single, integrated platform. Financial Fusion enables the building of complete financial destinations for banking and straight-through processing (STP) solutions for capital markets.
The local launch of the product, which has been implemented by many of the world's leading financial institutions, is based on its significant success in Europe. Sybase believes the product has much to offer a developing market like SA by providing a single, integrated e-finance platform.
"Worldwide, the financial services industry is being driven by the same goal: reducing the time in which deals are settled," says Julie Tomlinson, Sybase SA sales and marketing manager. "STP is essential, not only to minimise transaction costs and safeguard competitiveness, but to control the level of error and exposure to risk which accompany high trade volumes."
Tomlinson says the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's New Basel Accord (Basel 2) is forcing banks to exercise greater control over internal processes to reduce operating risk. The goal of Basel 2 is to make it easier for major institutions to package more big deals and to make more money by managing risk. The T+1 goal (according to which transactions must be settled one day after trade) is set to be in place by June 2005. This means banks have to change the way they do business and is having an enormous impact on existing technology infrastructures.
Typically, the more complex a financial trade is the more manual effort is required to process it and the more systems need to be aware of the existence of the transaction.
STP removes manual procedures from a transaction workflow by joining applications together and using intelligent software to replace them. This reduces operational costs, improves quality of information because fewer people are involved, and eliminates bottlenecks.
"Financial Fusion's solutions for financial markets are designed to meet the global STP requirements of the trading industry as trading volumes explode and the pressure to meet T+1 approaches," says Tomlinson. "These solutions also have the flexibility to run multiple protocols in the new era."
Financial Fusion's focus is two-fold, with solutions for financial markets and for retail banking. Tomlinson says initial marketing will focus on financial markets because the opportunities are greater, given the pressure being applied to this sector.
Sybase will be targeting the Financial Fusion suite at the larger indigenous South African banks which will require an overall architecture to help solve messaging problems.
Once this initial market entry point has been established, the company will focus on locally represented international banks.
The solutions provide processing for transaction intensive trading organisations such as securities and investment firms, electronic communications networks (ECNs) and network providers. Support is provided for SWIFTNet, FIX, SWIFT, GSTP, Omgeo and proprietary protocols.
All solutions run on Financial Fusion Server, a Java-based, multi-tier architecture, built to open standards. Its worldwide support network includes offices in 60 countries, and global alliance partners include Sybase, IBM, Sun Microsystems and SWIFT.
Tomlinson says that while there are many players in the messaging, middleware and process integration arena, none offer the same functionality as Financial Fusion.
"Financial Fusion provides one-stop solutions," she says. "This eases maintenance because customers know who to approach and, because it is backed by Sybase, customers can be assured of financial probity - an important consideration in the banking industry.
"An additional benefit is the fact that the solutions are all built on the same architecture, and that openness ensures connection to industry-standard products. Benchmark tests have also proved that Financial Fusion runs at very high volumes which means it can cope with projected market expansion."
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