SunGard’s AvantGard Supports SWIFT’s 3SKey & Common Global Implementation Initiatives

SunGard announced that its AvantGard solution will adopt two new industry initiatives: Personal Digital Identity (PDI), branded by SWIFT as 3SKey, and Common Global Implementation (CGI) which aims to streamline the use of the ISO 20022 standards for payments and cash management. The two initiatives will help foster improvements in the standardization of corporate transaction banking processes and financial messaging. More information about these initiatives is available at the Sibos 2010 Conference in Amsterdam, October 25-29.

In spite of the advanced technical interfaces that are now available for bank connectivity, corporations continue to face challenges related to implementing standardized solutions across the multiple banks with which they do business. However, according to SWIFT, adopting 3SKey and CGI can help improve security and standardize messaging between corporations and their banks. Many banking institutions have implemented different mechanisms around digital signatures and, by deploying SWIFT’s 3SKey, corporations will be able to standardize on a single personal identity scheme for all of their banks.

The CGI defines implementation guidelines for various payment types using the ISO 20022 XML payment initiation messages. CGI will help multinational corporations that initiate multiple payment instruments simplify and reduce time spent on implementing payment instructions fortheir various cash management banks. SunGard customers will be able to leverage both the 3SKey and CGI initiatives to help improve payments routing and delivery using SunGard’s AvantGard Payments solution.

“3SKey and the CGI are key pillars of SWIFT’s strategy to help the industry further streamline corporate-to-bank communications. We welcome SunGard’s initiative to extend the benefits of these two initiatives to its customers,” said Elie Lasker, head of corporate market at SWIFT.

Andrew Owens, managing director of global payments for SunGard’s Corporations business, said, “SWIFT’s 3SKey and the CGI initiatives will help corporations further standardize and centralize payments processes across various entities, business units and regions. These corporate transaction banking initiatives can help corporations improve their banking processes and ensure that transactions are performed in a secure, efficient and uncomplicated manner.”