Originally launched in 1987, Prophet was designed and developed to meet many of the actuarial needs of financial services companies throughout the world. The system is currently used by over 5,000 people in over 500 companies in more than 50 countries worldwide. It is also used extensively in-house by a number of actuarial consultancy firms on an international basis.

Following the completion of the acquisition, the Prophet team will be integrated within SunGard's Sherwood Systems business unit, complementing other Sherwood solutions, such as Amarta, a life insurance, pensions and annuity administration system that supports individual and group insurance products and processes.

Martin Sturmley, chief operating officer, Prophet, said, "Moving the Prophet team into SunGard will offer our clients the opportunity to benefit from the depth and experience of IT support from a well established software vendor, which is committed to the insurance sector."

"Stringent compliance issues have created a new demand for market participants to embrace technology solutions," said Gavin Lavelle, chief executive officer, SunGard Sherwood Systems. "Through the acquisition of Prophet and by continued expansion of our full range of solutions, SunGard is underlining its commitment to help the insurance industry meet customer demands and maintain its competitive edge. We are pleased to welcome Prophet's customers to SunGard and look forward to expanding our services."

Separtely, SunGard today announced that it has acquired The GETPAID Corporation, a leading provider of accounts receivable (AR) and collections management software for working capital optimization.

The transaction, the terms of which have not been disclosed, is not expected to have a material impact on SunGard's financial results. The GETPAID software will be part of SunGard's AvantGard enterprise treasury solution suite, and will be called AvantGard GETPAID. AvantGard GETPAID will help corporations to automate the entire financial value chain from customer order- to- cash management, while gaining real-time visibility into their enterprise cash position.

AvantGard GETPAID will help corporations to optimize and manage working capital, particularly the credit and collections processes of the AR department. AvantGard GETPAID will help streamline the order-to-cash process by consolidating customer invoice information, automating collection tasks, driving discrepancy resolution and generating advanced cash forecasts. The complete AvantGard solution will provide an enterprise-wide view of cash and working capital across accounts receivable, accounts payable and treasury.

"Our shared passion for excellence and SunGard's commitment to GETPAID's products, partners, and customers were paramount in making this decision," said Dianna Piumelli, chief executive officer of The GETPAID Corporation. "Our guiding principle has always been about empowering individuals and creating opportunities for the credit and finance professional. We believe that AvantGard GETPAID can take that objective to a new level. Tighter capital and credit markets are forcing companies to optimize working capital to better manage liquidity and risk. As a result, companies are looking for end-to-end solutions to manage the entire financial value chain. AvantGard GETPAID will help companies to gain greater visibility and tighten their controls around corporate credit risk, cash forecasting, and cash management."

Ken Dummit, president of SunGard's AvantGard business unit, said, "Improving working capital management is a strategic corporate priority. The majority of corporate treasuries of all sizes continue to rely on non-integrated, labor-intensive (even paper-based) processes for working capital management, most of which are inefficient and prone to errors. We want to help our customers to more efficiently manage working capital and the entire cash position across the financial supply chain with increased automation, straight-through processing and data integration. AvantGard GETPAID will help us to achieve this goal. With AvantGard GETPAID, SunGard will be able to help customers to improve business process automation across the order-to-cash process by delivering total working capital management."