BITS, a nonprofit consortium of 100 of the largest integrated financial institutions in the United States, and Microsoft Corp. today jointly announced an alliance designed to help improve the security of the nation's financial services infrastructure. The unprecedented collaboration between Microsoft and BITS is expected to help provide more secure infrastructures for most of the nation's financial services organizations.

"BITS is working closely with key vendors, including Microsoft, to help ensure that the products offered to our members are reliable, and that they are designed, developed and deployed with the highest appropriate security standards and with minimal impact in terms of costs of updating," said Thomas A. Renyi, chairman and chief executive officer of The Bank of New York Company Inc. and chairman of the BITS board of directors. "Our collaboration with Microsoft represents a significant step in ensuring the safety and soundness of our customers' critical infrastructures and ultimately helping protect a key segment of the national economy."