Today at Sibos 2005, Microsoft Corp. announced that the Association of Serbian Banks (ASB) has dramatically reduced the time taken to gyro clear checks from two weeks to less than one hour by automating its clearing process with a solution from Microsoft� partner Saga d.o.o. Beograd (Saga), using Microsoft BizTalk� Server 2004 and Microsoft BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT. The project was implemented in just four months.

�The ASB required a system that could be quickly and easily implemented. We embarked on this project after identifying BizTalk Server 2004 as the ideal solution to optimize the processing of transactions generated from multiple different sources,� said Zlatko Jegdic, executive manager of the E-Business Department at Saga. �We have a close alliance with Microsoft and knew that its solutions would help increase our developers� productivity.�

The new clearing system is based on a service-oriented architecture and provides security-enhanced, reliable and efficient message exchange based on standard SWIFT messages. Validations are undertaken at the core of the clearing subsystem along with account balance calculations and net calculations. BizTalk Server 2004 enables the implementation and management of business processes that unify the various applications and systems.