Commerzbank AG implements XML Business Integration from Software AG

XML business integration technology empowers individual departments to develop and integrate banking applications themselves

Commerzbank has been so impressed with the success of its customized-financial-derivative trading operations that it will also begin implementing its XMS Framework, based on Software AG’s XML business integration technology, for standardized-product trading operations. XMS allows the bank’s employees to handle integration and development projects themselves without receiving prior specialized IT training. Having this capability shortens considerably the project times for such tasks as integrating heterogeneous banking applications and developing new applications, leading to a sharp fall in IT costs for both development and maintenance.

XMS Framework is a generalized approach suitable for various banking applications, including portfolio management, back-office integration, and data warehousing. Current application options include introducing credit-loss settlement systems to conform with Basel II and efficiently integrating standard reporting software. XMS Framework provides an IT platform with a common graphical user interface and all the necessary tools to perform its functions. The solution’s cornerstone is a structure editor that the bank’s employees can use themselves to model financial products through predefined components. For example, they can create a standardized data structure that transfers data from heterogeneous systems and then makes it available for other applications in real time, all via a common XML interface. Consequently, time-consuming and costly interface programming between individual systems is no longer necessary. In addition, the modeling phase allows departments to automatically generate applications, further shortening time to market.

Jonathan Airey, Software AG Vice-President of XML Business Integration, commented, “This is further evidence that our XML Business Integration portfolio, which includes Tamino XML Server, has the performance and scalability required to address the changing demands of the financial services industry. By listening to our customers and delivering solutions that meet their specific business requirements, we can grow our integration business by placing the customer first.”

XML – the key technology for XMS Framework

The XMS Framework is Java based and universally uses the XML standard. Commerzbank tested various relational and object-oriented databases and decided to go with Tamino XML Server, a fundamental component of Software AG’s business-integration technology, in order to ensure maximum flexibility and expandability for integration and development projects. Tamino’s native XML implementation is a key element in XMS Framework’s rapid mapping and expansion of highly complex financial products with extensive nested product structures and recursive processing. Since its implementation in 2003, XMS Framework has demonstrated these capabilities in the trading of customized financial derivatives. Tamino XML Server provides particularly high stability, scalability, and performance, which are especially important in implementing XMS Framework for use in trading with standardized financial products. These products have a less complex structure, but are traded in massive quantities. In order to deal with them, Tamino XML Server offers a processing capacity of more than seven million XML documents per hour on a 16-processor machine. This seamless scalability ensures that XMS Framework continues to work reliably and quickly, even while the number of users and the trading volume increase rapidly.