BIAN boosts global network with addition of six new financial services and tech members

New members including EY to share expertise in development of standardised IT framework for global banks

London, March 24 2015 — The Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) today welcomes six new members to its rapidly expanding global network — taking the not-for-profit to a total of 58 leading banks, service providers, software vendors and academic partners across every continent.

 Multinational professional services corporation EY, international leader in digital services Atos, relationship banking solutions provider Zafin, electronic payment specialists Advance Banking Solution Emirates and Digital Payment Partners and Universal Payments provider ACI Worldwide, will now work with existing BIAN members to continue developing the standardised IT framework for global banks.

The new members will use the BIAN standard as a framework for services and products, while advising global banks, who use their services, of the benefits of complying with BIAN’s international IT model for business banking. The model relies on a service-oriented architecture (SOA) that identifies the core business capabilities within global banks and separates them into standardised definitions, for simple categorisation.

EY, one of the world’s largest professional services corporations, with offices in over 150 countries, will contribute their expertise across assurance, advisory, tax and transactions with the BIAN network. With vast experience advising clients on large financial services transformations, EY will prove a valuable contributor to the BIAN model. In addition, EY will leverage the BIAN assets to enable several client service offerings and client campaigns to be based on this industry model.

In the wake of the financial crisis, re-building and strengthening customer relations has never been more important for banks. The addition of BIAN’s first relationship banking solutions provider Zafin into the membership base will increase the value of BIAN’s deliverables in line with this — allowing the not-for-profit to support members with product development and pricing and build customer loyalty systems into the BIAN model.

Similarly, with payments currently under the spotlight from international regulators, BIAN welcomes the knowledge and support from electronic payment specialists ACI Worldwide, Advance Banking Solution Emirates and Digital Payment Partners, in navigating this rapidly changing industry.

Alongside providing additional IT expertise to the BIAN framework, new member Atos plans to use the BIAN model to support partners in the channel space when offering consultancy to banking clients.

Drawing on the expertise of BIAN’s diverse membership base is key to developing a technology model that answers to the needs of the entire international banking landscape. Connecting banks with their service providers and IT vendors, along with the added expertise of academic researchers, BIAN provides a platform for key stakeholders in the global financial and IT landscape to collaborate and share their vision for the future of banking technology.

Hans Tesselaar, Executive Director BIAN commented: “To have signed up 15 new members over the past 12 months is a great achievement for BIAN and a credit to the positive influence BIAN’s framework is having on the financial services industry.

“Adding EY, Advance Banking Solution Emirates, Digital Payment Partners, Atos, ACI Worldwide and Zafin to BIAN’s sophisticate membership base will further strengthen and deepen the BIAN’s expertise across all the domains in the banking landscape.

“With members covering every continent and collaboration between banks and their service providers and IT vendors, BIAN is extremely well-positioned to continue developing a standardised IT banking business framework that can benefit the entire global financial ecosystem.”

Roger Park, Principal, EY’s Financial Services Organisation: “EY is very excited to join BIAN.  We see a significant benefit to the market in developing standard architecture reference models, and we look forward to contributing the insights our consultants have gained from advising on large banking transformations.”