WEBM Webmediabrands (MM)

webMethods Payments Monitoring Continuously Measures KPIs to Help Banks Meet Customer Expectations While Improving Payments Business COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Sept. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- webMethods Inc. (NASDAQ:WEBM), a leading business integration and optimization software company, today debuted webMethods Payments Monitoring(TM), a new solution designed to help wholesale banks and other financial institutions transform their corporate payments operations into more predictable, customer-centric and profitable business units. By enabling the automatic monitoring of the entire payments process in real-time, webMethods Payments Monitoring delivers immediate enhancements in a financial institution's ability to meet customer service level commitments while helping them achieve continuous process improvements. The announcement was made in conjunction with webMethods' significant presence at SIBOS 2005, the world's premier financial services event, where the company is showcasing a variety of industry-leading capabilities that currently enable more than 135 financial institutions to meet some of their most business-critical challenges. Confronted with increasing global competition for corporate payments customers, webMethods Payments Monitoring helps wholesale banks address their simultaneous need to reduce operating costs through automation, consistently deliver on their customer promises, and develop greater differentiation in their products and services. As Susan Feinberg of TowerGroup, a leading financial services analyst firm, defines the situation, "Corporate and institutional customers expect banks to execute their payments flawlessly. That has become the minimum requirement in order to stay in the game. With the growing demand from customers for real-time visibility into the payments process, banks must implement solutions that ensure that transactions and the associated payment information are handled in an efficient, accurate and timely manner throughout the entire processing cycle." webMethods Payments Monitoring fulfills these requirements by providing wholesale banks with the comprehensive ability to reduce transaction costs, provide best-in-class customer service and deliver new customer-specific services. A key differentiator is the enhanced visibility and predictability that helps banks avoid financial penalties by continuously measuring adherence to important customer-specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The predictive analytics built into the solution can even be used to proactively alert users to potential issues through the use of patent-pending "fingerprinting" technology that dynamically compares current service-level trends with previously incurred violations. This enhanced, real-time process monitoring can also be used deliver additional customer benefits, such as the ability for end-users to immediately determine payment status, which provides corporate customers with greater control over the execution of these transactions while allowing banks the opportunity to assess additional fees as a result. "By taking advantage of the proven technology of our flagship product suite, webMethods Fabric(TM), we're now able to offer the industry's most comprehensive solution for monitoring and optimizing payments processing," said Deborah Rosen, executive vice president, Worldwide Marketing, webMethods Inc. "Already, one of our banking customers is using webMethods to manage annual payment volume of nearly US$3 trillion with greater precision, efficiency and control than previously possible. Operations of this scope underscore the need for automatic monitoring and a mechanism to enable process improvement. The real-time visibility and feedback offered by webMethods Payments Monitoring more than meets these requirements as it provides wholesale banks with the integrated ability to fully optimize and differentiate their business." Built on the service-oriented architecture (SOA) enabled by webMethods Fabric, webMethods Payments Monitoring is a comprehensive solution that leverages and extends existing payments infrastructure to deliver increased agility and adaptability. More specifically, the new solution brings together process integration, automation and monitoring within a unified solution suite so that wholesale banks can take advantage of a closed-loop approach for more readily achieving continuous process improvements across their most critical operations. The solution also features full support for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) and Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions to further simplify the task of managing, automating and streamlining real-time payments processes that span a variety of disparate systems. As a complete solution suite, webMethods Payments Monitoring offers all of the most essential features needed by banks looking to secure optimal performance from their payments businesses: * Process Design and Modeling - Provide users with the ability to eliminate fragmented and redundant steps within the end-to-end payments process by visually mapping, modeling and testing the real-time interaction of systems and users. * Straight-Through Processing - Increase operational efficiency while eliminating errors through the extended use of process automation and robust, SOA-based system integration to further streamline operations. * Real-time and Predictive Monitoring - Improve achievement of customer service commitments with real-time, predictive monitoring that allows institutions to proactively address and resolve service-level issues. * Executive Dashboard - More effectively manage the entire payments processing life-cycle via real-time access to key performance indicators. * Integrated Compliance Management - Support achievement of compliance requirements with predefined exception management processes incorporating human workflows, documented audit trails and automated alerts to suspicious activities. * Customer Self-Service - Promote customer loyalty through the introduction of web-based, self-service tools that empower users to more directly manage and monitor their payments processes. Pricing and Availability webMethods Payments Monitoring is available immediately with pricing available directly from webMethods. Further information can be found by visiting http://www.webmethods.com/payments. About webMethods, Inc. webMethods (NASDAQ:WEBM) provides business integration software to integrate, assemble and optimize available IT assets to drive business process productivity. webMethods delivers an innovative, enterprise-class business integration platform that incorporates proven integration technology with next generation capabilities into one interoperable set of tools that delivers a unique combination of efficiency, agility and control. webMethods combines industry leadership with a zealous commitment to customers to deliver tangible business value to more than 1,300 global customers. webMethods is headquartered in Fairfax, Va., with offices throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia Pacific and Japan. More information about the company can be found at http://www.webmethods.com/. The webMethods name and logo are registered trademarks, and webMethods Fabric and webMethods Payment Monitoring are trademarks, of webMethods, Inc. in the United States of America and certain other countries. All other marks mentioned are trademarks or service marks of their respective companies. DATASOURCE: webMethods, Inc. CONTACT: John Conley of webMethods, +1-703-460-5996, or ; or Nicola Males of webMethods UK, 44-1784-221623, or Web site: http://www.webmethods.com/ http://www.webmethods.com/payments

Copyright