At Sibos 2005 Copenhagen, Microsoft Corp. today announced that Banco de Espa�a, Spain�s central bank, has chosen Microsoft to develop a system that will enable it to interface its TARGET2-related business applications with the European Central Bank�s Single Shared Platform (SSP) using the SWIFT network. Banco de Espa�a plans to migrate fully to TARGET2 for the settlement of large-value euro payments by 2007.

The Banco de Espa�a TARGET2 integration project focuses on the development of three key elements: an efficient, robust, flexible, high-performance Enterprise Application Infrastructure for TARGET2; a TARGET2 Information Management System (IMS) application that will validate, transform, enrich and route payment messages between the TARGET2 platform and the Banco de Espa�a platform across the SWIFT network; and a Management Console. The Management Console will provide auditing, logging and tracing capabilities, allowing Banco de Espa�a staff to detect and correct erroneous large-value euro payment transactions quickly and efficiently.

The project will use the following technologies: Microsoft� BizTalk� Server 2004, Microsoft BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT, BizTalk Adapter for MQ Series, Microsoft SQL Server� 2000 and Microsoft Windows Server� 2003.