Swift Ebam ECU in full production “late 2012″
Swift plans to have its electronic bank account management (Ebam) central utility (ECU) in full production by the end of 2012. The cooperative has piloted the utility with BNY Mellon, RBS, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase and seven corporates including BT, IBM and General Electric.
The ECU creates a single multibank platform for multinational companies and correspondent banks to manage their bank accounts electronically, capitalising on the ISO-approved standards that have been developed collaboratively under the auspices of Swift’s innovation team. Hundreds of business scenarios were run as part of the pilot to validate the ISO 20022 XML standards and the centralised ebam hub, including account reports, opening and closing mandates.
The seven corporations involved in the scheme used FileAct and the internet to access the central utility, proving its operational value for Swift and non-Swift customers alike.
Swift is now looking for feedback following the completion of the pilot, Carlo Palmers, corporate market solution manager at Swift, told Daily News at Sibos, “prior to a full rollout, hopefully by the end of next year”.
A vendor selection process and full pilot of the ‘go live’ ECU system will be required before the final solution is unveiled but the promising findings so far mean that Palmers is keen to push on. “There is an eagerness in the market to start implementing Ebam,” he said.
Operationally, the ECU service prepares Ebam instructions from a database that stores all the necessary bank and country specific account information. The hub ensures that all submitted instructions comply with the set rules, guidelines and requirements, accelerating the exchange of timely, correct information. Swift’s multibank personal digital identity solution, 3SKey, is used to secure all ECU transactions and control access to the first build platform.
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