NEON Systems Empower Financial Clients

New Era of Networks, Inc, (NEON) has added a Portal Server--allowing customers of financial institutions and banks greater viewing access into the trade process--to its NEON e+1 family of products, designed to manage complex financial transactions and facilitate straight-through processing (STP).

The Portal Server is designed to give NEON's customers' customers, or the end user, access to SWIFTNet for messaging services and, at the same time, provide them with a window into the internal status of their transactions. It is also used for content aggregation and management. Douglas Jeffery, president of global financial services for NEON, says, "The Portal Server provides financial institutions and banks the chance to extend their services to their clients. Clients will no longer have to wonder if their trade has been cleared."

NEON's e+1 family of products works with SWIFTNet, which provides a secure Internet protocol (IP) network, to carry a full range of accessible, real time, interactive communication services to SWIFT customers. The e+1 solution gives financial institutions the ability to take advantage of interactive and real-time messaging services offered by SWIFT.

By using e+1 from NEON, financial institutions can offer automated communication to their clients and provide support for multiple SWIFT message standards, including ISO 15022. The e+1 family of products includes SWIFT, FIX and tradeconnectivity, and order management.

Although the goal of the integrated NEON products is STP for financial institutions and banks, Jeffery admits that STP is still only realistic in "straight-vanilla trades." Trades with any degree of complexity, he says, will still require some element of human interaction, thwarting STP, at least with the level of technology presently available.

Though no new clients have been signed on since the Portal Server was recently added to the e+1 offering, NEON's existing clients include Merrill Lynch, Mitsubishi Trust Bank, Wachovia Bank and CrestCo. All components of the Solution--which can be installed at an institution as a total package or on a piecemeal basis--such as e-Biz Integrator, eProcess Enabler, NEONtrack and the Portal Server, are currently available from NEON. Pricing begins at $50,000 per component and varies according to configuration requirements.