AEG Newsletter

First Quarter - 2020 | Issue #9

 

      

 

 

 

 

 

 

“…with perseverance and resilience, our work will not be affected”

 

 

 

 

Word from the CEO

The current circumstances have given the year of 2020 an unexpected turn of events. The epidemic we are living has forced certain implications on international business and on the whole financial community, yet, with perseverance and resilience, our work will not be affected.

We, at AEG, are taking all the necessary measures that secure the safety of our teams across all our branches as well as the safety of our customers. We asked a big part of our teams to operate virtually from home, while others are operating from physical offices with strictly high health precautions, in order to ensure the continuity of our business undertakings and to assure the business continuity of our clients. Our support team is operating 24/7 as always via phone, email, or Webex, and all scheduled deliveries and implementations will be completed on time.

Further, taking the current situation into consideration and the need of the bank’s staff to smoothly work securely and paperless from home, we are offering them the SmartSMD solution, a secure message dispatcher, that allows bank employees to work securely from home.

In the hope that this situation ends soon and life gets back to normal, we are doing our best to help keep our clients steady throughout, and keep them protected and secure, health wise and business wise.

Dr. Mohamed Sadek – CEO and General Manager

Migration to ISO 20022

ISO 20022 allows the existence of a common language and payments model which will drastically enhance the quality of data within the payment’s ecosystem. It is now realized as a global messaging language for payments. It is already used in over 70 countries, and it is expected to be the most dominant supporting global transactions in the years to come. Its great flexibility allows it to meet current and future needs.

Knowing that the current SWIFT MT messages and a new API-based exchange will be valid until November 2025, SWIFT has extended the date for enabling ISO 20022 messages for cross-border payments and cash reporting businesses by one year. This delay allows the banks to adopt at their own pace and gives them time till the end of 2022 to be ready.

This is where AEG steps in. We are helping our customers to facilitate the adoption process. AEG is updating its software to be compliant with ISO 20022 and to be eventually certified by SWIFT.

Moreover, we are coordinating with SWIFT to complete banks’ migrations to the new standard, and we are working closely with SWIFT and collaborating to facilitate the integration with SWIFT solutions and software such as the SWIFT Translator among others.  

Universal Payment Confirmation

SWIFT payment confirmation is a “FIN message that confirms the main facts of a deal. The information includes the date on which the counterparties agreed to the deal, the settlement instructions, and the amounts involved”. By the end of 2020, Payment Confirmation will be mandatory for financial institutions.

AEG has developed a confirmation tool called “AEG Universal Payment Confirmation” in response to the growing need and in line with SWIFT requirements. A confirmation tool, not only gives insights on the payment information and status, but also allows financial institutions to provide an enhanced experience to their customers which gives them a value-added service – reason that has always driven AEG to serve the best products and services.

AEG Universal Payment Confirmation allows the bank to comply with the SWIFT mandatory requirements by easily sending the required “Confirmation” related to received transfers on the outcome of a customer payment whether the funds got credited to the end beneficiary account or the payment was rejected to the SWIFT Tracker. The application works as a middleware between the core banking applications and SWIFT interface to formulate the payment confirmation or rejection received from the core banking applications and update the SWIFT tracker by sending MT199 or calling the API to the connector, and then it passes the received confirmation to the core banking applications to be updated. It can also integrate with the functionalities of the back-office applications to help the banks offer tracking capability and send confirmation to their clients.

The “AEG Universal Payment Confirmation” exists today as standalone application or as part of the AEG gpi-PRO application.

For more information, contact your account manager here

AEG gpi-PRO Implementation

AEG has already started implementing its powerful payment and tracking application AEG gpi-PRO at a number of banks; some of which went live and others of which are in the testing process. We are getting excellent feedback about the application.

AEG gpi-PRO is based on the available tools and capabilities of SWIFT gpi. It aims to enhance and facilitate gpi use by the banks. It integrates gpi with the functionalities and services of the back-office system and helps the banks offer tracking capability to their clients.

AEG SmartSMD

Due to the current situation of COVID-19 pandemic and the forced work-from-home policies that is difficult for banks on how to conduct their day-to-day tasks remotely, AEG is offering a powerful and secure message distribution application: AEG SmartSMD.

SmartSMD is user-friendly web-based application that can be installed remotely. This solution allows bank employees to perform, remotely and securely, an efficient and automated smart dispatching of the incoming SWIFT messages/transactions to the related department/personnel for processing.

SmartSMD is also used for strict SWIFT message monitoring, helping financial institutions to enforce security and compliance as it allows managers to monitor the distribution and execution of messages.

Considering the current situation, AEG announces a very special offer on AEG SmartSMD valid till end of April 2020.

For more information, contact your account manager here

 

 

In This Issue

 

 

01.    Migration to ISO 20022

 

 

02.    AEG Universal Payment Confirmation

 

 

03.    AEG gpi-PRO Implementation

 

 

04.    AEG SmartSMD

 

 

 

“AEG is helping its clients to facilitate the adoption process of ISO 20022 standard.”

 

 

 

“AEG Universal Payment Confirmation allows the bank to comply with the SWIFT mandatory requirements”

 

 

Reminders and Announcements

ü  The new SWIFTNet CA certificate has been available for installation since September 2019 to be up and running by March 2020. The new certificate is mandatory for encryption and verification. In order to avoid service disruption, AEG has been communicating with and notifying its clients, providing all the needed support and guidance in order for them to operate a supported and compliant infrastructure.

ü  End of support for Alliance V7.2 is effective since January 2020.

ü  End of support for Alliance V7.3 is effective in April 2021. Hence, AEG has already migrated a number of its clients to Alliance V7.4 and working to migrate all of its customers ASAP.

ü  It is clear by now that all scheduled events and roadshows have been canceled or suspended until further notice due to the worldwide epidemic spread of COVID-19.

ü  AEG assures the continuity of its business operations in spite of the current world health situation, knowing that AEG’s management is taking highest precautions to protect its teams and its clients equally.

 

 

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