BankServ Joins SWIFT As Corporate Member

SWIFT's new corporate access program, designed to open up the network to the treasury departments of companies that need a secure way to send financial messages, has so far attracted the likes of IBM, Microsoft and General Electric as initial participants. BankServ -- which currently processes SWIFT messages on behalf of more than 300 banks in 52 countries using its TurboSwift system -- will use its membership to transmit files to its bank customers over the SWIFT network.

BankServ already processes over 40 million ACH bill payment transactions each year, and plans to work with its bank customers to route the transactions over the SWIFT network -- as soon as the banks are ready to receive files via SWIFT. By doing so, BankServ believes it will help break new ground for many U.S. banks by showing them how to work with corporate members. Earlier this week, the company also announced a collaboration with SWIFT to develop a new service called SWIFT2Fed, which will allow Fedwire transactions to be sent over the international network.

"We look forward to the opportunity to work with a respected organization such as SWIFT to serve the financial industry in new ways," said Mary Ellen Putnam, BankServ's vice president and international business unit manager. "Corporate membership will help many companies handle their financial transactions in a secure fashion. In BankServ's case, it will also allow us to make improvements to our existing product lines."

In addition to its significant ACH volume, BankServ plans to use SWIFT messaging for its DepositNow desktop deposit service. With DepositNow, banks enable their business customers to deposit images of checks over the Internet instead of physically transporting the checks to the bank. Once BankServ captures the images and converts them into settlement files, it will transmit the files to the clearing banks via SWIFT. By doing so, the company hopes to make the product simpler for banks to install, using the SWIFT standard instead of custom-building connections in most cases.

"This decision came about largely due to SWIFT's growing role as an international standard for secure data transfer," Putnam said. "Opening the network to corporations brings a multitude of chances for more efficient financial communication."