Microsoft has been contracted by Holland's ING Investment Management to provide its BizTalk Server as the financial messaging platform for Swift connectivity to its settlement partner Bank of New York Mellon.
The project, annouced at this year's Sibos event in Vienna, is scheduled to go live by the end of the year and will enable ING to send and receive ISO 15022 securites and payments messages directly from its internal applications.
Thomas Schreier, senior vice president, Information Technology, ING Investment Management, cited the ability to maintain its exisiting architecture as a key reason for implementing the Microsoft application.
In addition to facilitating Swift connectivity to BNY Mellon, ING will also be using the BizTalk Server to transmit data to its newly established centralised data storage system, a project desigend to help the asset manager with its future expansion plans and outsourcing strategy.
"We will continue working with ING to further streamline its business and help the firm with its architectural, design and operational reviews going forward," says Sheida Hadji-Ashrafi, worldwide industry manager, Payments, at Microsoft.
Microsoft has also used the Sibos event to announce a new partnership with Swift aimed at helping Microsoft's customers with their SwiftNet implementation and integration projects. "We expect our global partnership to promote additional adoption of Swift connectivity and Swift Solutions in the future," says Amanda Westwood, global head of Swift's customer service division.