Finastra launched its instant payments offering in the cloud for small and mid-sized banks, helping them bypass legacy systems and move faster to serve customers.

Finastra, a financial software provider, launched its instant payments offering in the cloud for small and mid-sized banks on Monday. Its new solution enables tier three and four financial institutions in the EU and US to access the benefits that the cloud delivers, without the cost and on-premise infrastructure requirements, the firm said during the unveiling of its product at the Money 2020 and Sibos event.

«We will enable small and mid-sized banks to step up to the plate and really compete in the cloud environment. Where the largest banks would likely prefer our private cloud solution, small and mid-sized banks crave cost-effective packaged solutions which are quick to deploy and avoid legacy platform complications,» said Sagive Greenspan, general manager of payments, Finastra in a media statement.

Available Next Year

«The adoption of immediate payments is moving at a rapid pace and is becoming increasingly ubiquitous. Immediate payments are the essential underpinning for clients’ digital transformations,» noted Greenspan. «We’re responding to this increasing demand for hosted payments solutions with a compelling offering built on our deep domain expertise, in combination with Microsoft.»

Based on Microsoft Azure, the pre-defined offering will be generally available in Q2 2019. It will enable central updates, ensuring all users benefit from the latest changes or new product functionalities immediately, including SWIFT and clearing scheme updates.

Banks will be able to get up and running in just a few months with standardised pricing and on-boarding processes in this service-as-a-software. This will provide a clear, future-proof cost structure and flexibility in a market where volumes are currently hard to predict. 

Agile Platform

Financial institutions will be able to tap into a proven service, without extensive development and implementation timeframes or costs. This will ease the move from a capital expenditure to an operating expenditure environment, Finastra said. 

«Small and mid-sized banks require an agile platform that works out of the box, rather than taking a long time to see project value. The Fusion Global PAYplus packaged cloud solution will serve the growing need for immediate payments processing, including high throughput all day, every day and end-to-end transaction times of seconds,» it said.