BIAN expands with addition of new members, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Rabobank Group, Scotiabank and ACI Worldwide

Frankfurt am Main, Germany — July 5, 2011 — The Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) is proud to announce that four organizations, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Rabobank Group, Scotiabank and ACI Worldwide have joined BIAN and expanded the worldwide reach of the organization. BIAN supports the vision of global IT industry standards which enable banks to lower integration costs, minimize IT risk, and thus allow banks to focus on their strategic priorities. With its members representing banks, software vendors and system integrators, BIAN is looking forward to working closely with the new members to continue collaborative efforts in defining and implementing standardized specifications of enterprise services interfaces. The joint deliverables are expected to reduce integration costs of bank transformation projects.

“CBA joining BIAN is an exciting step forward into the Asia-Pacific market and Scotiabank from Canada demonstrates the further internationalization of BIAN. ACI Worldwide offers the perspective from an international provider of payment systems. Rabobank is also a truly international operating bank and the first cooperative bank that joins BIAN. They all share with BIAN a common vision about the interoperable architectures in banking and a common understanding regarding the strategic evolution of core banking systems.”explains Karin Fischenbeck, Secretary General of BIAN, who continues “We are looking forward to their inputs and the joint creation of global standards that can be used by the entire banking ecosystem, such as the latest BIAN results from the Lending Working Group, along with a comprehensive version of the BIAN Service Landscape.”

Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Commonwealth Bank of Australia is the first bank from the Asia Pacific region to join BIAN. Current and future members will benefit from the additional perspectives that the CBA will bring to the organization. The CBA brings with it valuable knowledge of changing IT needs in banking and this will help to accelerate standards in the banking ecosystem.

“The CBA will contribute knowledge gained through our banking transformation programs and hopes to learn about experiences from other members to further increase the interoperability in our systems.”says Tim Whiteley, Executive General Manager Enterprise Service Development at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Rabobank Group
Rabobank Group is an international financial services provider operating on the basis of cooperative principles. It offers banking, asset management, leasing, insurance and real estate services. Focus is on broad financial services provision in the Netherlands and primarily on the food and agribusiness internationally. Rabobank Group is comprised of independent local Rabobanks plus Rabobank Nederland, their umbrella organisation, and a number of specialist subsidiaries.

“Lowering integration costs, minimizing IT risk, thus allowing banks to focus on their strategic priorities through IT industry standards is important to us”, says René Steenvoorden, CIO of Rabobank. “Our company is based on cooperative principles, we believe in collaboration. With BIAN we aim to stimulate international standards from which all can benefit.”

Scotiabank
As Canada’s most international bank, with branches and offices in more than 50 countries worldwide, and the first North American bank to join BIAN, Scotiabank brings valuable knowledge of changing IT needs from a North American and international banking perspective. This will help to define future interoperability in the banking ecosystem.

“Scotiabank is excited to be joining BIAN, and actively participating in the creation of new IT standards, ”says Martine Lamoureux, Vice-President, Retail Banking Technology at Scotiabank. “With global operations, we understand and appreciate the value of collaborating to create common international standards from which all can benefit. We are proud to partner with BIAN.”

ACI Worldwide
ACI Worldwide, Inc. is a leading international provider of payment systems. It powers electronic payments for more than 800 financial institutions, retailers and processors around the world. The company has the broadest, most integrated suite of electronic payment software in the market.

“ACI Worldwide is looking forward to bringing its expertise in payments to help shape this emerging standard for the banking industry jointly with other major players in the market. As a leading member of the IFX Forum, we believe the recent memorandum of understanding between BIAN and IFX regarding collaborative efforts will deliver commonality in standards, therefore reducing costs and increasing agility for the payments industry,”says Louis Blatt, chief product officer at ACI Worldwide.

About BIAN
Established in 2008, The Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) is an independent, member owned, not-for-profit association to establish and promote a common architectural framework for banking interoperability issues. BIAN’s goal is to define SOA and semantic definitions for IT services in the banking industry. The community focuses on creating a standard semantic banking services landscape, while ensuring consistent service definitions, levels of detail and boundaries. This will help banks to achieve a reduction of integration costs and use the advantages of a service-oriented architecture.

Financial institutions, software vendors, and system integrators, along with technology partners, are invited to join the association and play a collaborative role with other industry leaders in defining, building and implementing next-generation banking platforms.

BIAN Members: ACI Worldwide Inc., Axon, Callataÿ & Wouters, Capital Banking Solutions, CGI, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Postbank, FERNBACH, ifb group, IKOR, ING, innobis AG, Microsoft, SAP, SunGard, Standard Bank of South Africa, SWIFT, syskoplan, Temenos, Scotiabank Group, Zürcher Kantonalbank.

About Commonwealth Bank of Australia
The Commonwealth Bank is Australia’s leading provider of integrated financial services including retail banking, premium banking, business banking, institutional banking, funds management, superannuation, insurance, investment and sharebroking products and services. The Group is one of the largest listed companies on the Australian Stock Exchange and is included in the Morgan Stanley Capital Global Index. For more information please visit http://www.commbank.com.au/

About Rabobank Group
Rabobank Group is an international financial services provider operating on the basis of cooperative principles. It offers banking, asset management, leasing, insurance and real estate services. Focus is on broad financial services provision in the Netherlands and primarily on the food and agribusiness internationally. Rabobank Group is comprised of independent local Rabobanks plus Rabobank Nederland, their umbrella organisation, and a number of specialist subsidiaries. Overall, Rabobank Group has approximately 59,000 employees (in FTEs), who serve about 10 million customers in 48 countries.
In terms of tier 1 capital, Rabobank Group is among the world’s 25 largest financial institutions. All rating agencies have awarded Rabobank the highest rating possible for banks.For more information please visit www.rabobank.com

About Scotiabank
Scotiabank is one of North America’s premier financial institutions and Canada’s most international bank. With more than 70,000 employees, Scotiabank Group and its affiliates serve some 18.6 million customers in more than 50 countries around the world. Scotiabank offers a broad range of products and services including personal, commercial, corporate and investment banking. With assets above $541 billion (as at January 31, 2011), Scotiabank trades on the Toronto (BNS) and New York Exchanges (BNS). For more information please visit www.scotiabank.com

About ACI Worldwide
ACI Worldwide powers electronic payments for more than 800 financial institutions, retailers and processors around the world, with its broad and integrated suite of electronic payment software. More than 90 billion times each year, ACI’s solutions process consumer payments. On an average day, ACI software manages more than US$12 trillion in wholesale payments. And for more than 160 organizations worldwide, ACI software helps to protect their customers from financial crime. To learn more about ACI and understand why we are trusted globally, please visit www.aciworldwide.com. You can also find us on www.paymentsinsights.com or on Twitter @ACI_Worldwide.

CBA Press Contact
Arjun Ramachandran
Communications Manager
Arjun.Ramachandran@cba.com.au
T: +61 2 9378 2731
http://www.cba.com.au

Rabobank Press Contact
Kees Nanninga
Press officer
T.: +31 30 216 2758
Pressoffice@rn.rabobank.nl

Scotiabank Media Contact
Deborah Clark
Scotiabank Media Communications
deborah_clark@scotiacapital.com
T: +1 416-933-0646

ACI Worldwide Inc. Press Contact
Catherine Eyres
Public Relations
T +44 1923 812741
catherine.eyres@aciworldwide.com