OPERATIONS

CheckFree Financial and Compliance Solutions, a business unit within CheckFree Corporation, announced that it has signed an agreement to build an interface from its CheckFree RECON Securities system to Omgeo TradeHub, a settlement notification and reconciliation service. With the new connection, buy-side financial-services clients will benefit from a secure network to receive settlement-reconciliation messages from custodians for their reconciliation system.

Mercator Software, Inc. announced that Harris Bank, a member of BMO Financial Group, has selected Mercator to enhance SAP/ERP system interoperability between the bank and its corporate customers. This will benefit clients who use Harris' Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) service, wire-transfer services, and other cash-management products.

Swift announced that it has selected COLT, Equant and Infonet for the provision of managed IP-VPN (virtual-private-network) services. Negotiations with a fourth well-established provider are ongoing. The providers will offer standardized connectivity to the Swift backbone network that underpins SWIFTNet. Facing uncertainty in the telecommunications industry, SWIFT changed its IP network strategy earlier this year, moving from a single-vendor to a multi-vendor architecture.