Brokat says the acquisition will complete its recent North American buying spree by incorporating brokerage functionality into its existing suite of e-finance applications, which includes retail, small business, corporate and mobile banking solutions. Brokat plans to mobile-enable the AFS solution and integrate it onto the Twister platform.

Spending by financial institutions on brokerage technology will increase at an overall annual growth rate of 10 percent through 2003, predicts Celent Communications, a Boston-based consulting and research firm dedicated to e-commerce in financial services.

"Offering customers stock trading has become a differentiator for financial institutions. The acquisition of AFS strengthens Brokat's financial services products and further solidifies its presence as a leader in the market," says Octavio Marenzi, managing director of Celent Communications. The June 2000 Celent report ranked AFS first among online brokerage software vendors for number of customers live, and second for number of end users.

The acqusition frees Brokat to offer brokerage functionality tailored to the US and European markets. AFS's 90 installed customers and user base of approximately 2.5 million retail investors give Brokat an established brokerage customer base as it enters the North American market. The addition of AFS will bring Brokat's customer base of financial institutions to more than 2100 globally.

Brokat has expressed a strong commitment to its North American expansion with the recent acquisition of GemStone Systems and Blaze Software. "Each of these acquisitions has supplemented and strengthened our core product Twister. Brokat is now able to offer a complete e-finance solution on one open platform," says Stefan Roever, CEO of Brokat.