2011-12-01

Credit and Trust adopts Corniche
We are pleased to welcome Credit and Trust UK Limited of London to our Corniche user group. An agreement was signed by the company in late summer to implement a service in the autumn using Corniche ASP-hosting. Credit and Trust has been live for two months and CEO, Luca Doimi, reports a very high degree of customer satisfaction from online clients using CornicheNet.

Credit and Trust operates in many markets. However, an important element of its business is to act as trusted intermediary for the management of escrow payments between suppliers and buyers. The Corniche escrow system allows a supplier to agree an invoice for goods/services to be rendered, advise the buyer of delivery and make a payment request; the seller can then confirm receipt and in so doing, authorise the payment to the buyer. Credit and Trust actually debits the buyer’s account automatically when the deal is made so that funds are available to make the payment from escrow when delivery is signalled.

C&T also have the ability to make partial payments and partial refunds where the terms of an agreement are not completed by the supplier.

Another factor in the decision to adopt Corniche ASP was that C&T did not have to invest capital in the system but could instead use the cloud services of Megasol and reduce annual spend considerably. “We liked Corniche and we liked the people of Megasol” said Mr. Doimi. “The Corniche system is highly intuitive and staff have not had a big learning curve as a result. Megasol staff provide excellent training and support tailored to our needs. This is not a one-size fits all relationship. Megasol understands what our customers need today and ensure that we can meet our customers’ needs. As those needs expand or change, we know that Megasol and Corniche are ready to support us.”

Mårten Törnquist, President of Megasol Technologies, welcomed Credit and Trust saying “We are pleased that our very personal services, in which our clients talk directly with the partners of Megasol, have once again proven worthy. We look forward to helping Credit and Trust achieve its business objectives and growth targets both as friend and as business partner”.

Corniche ASP and cloud services are hosted from Megasol data centres either in Stockholm or Amsterdam.

2011-03-08

Rapid Implementation for SuisseCap
Megasol Technologies welcomes SuisseCap Wealth Management of Geneva, Switzerland, to its Corniche ASP user base. SuisseCap is an independent asset management company providing investment management services for both institutional and high net worth private clients. SuisseCap - http://www.suissecapwm.com - offers tailor-made investment management solutions and a constantly growing set of additional services.

Brian Bagdasarian, Chief Investment Officer, noted that SuisseCap's primary goal is to ensure high standard personalized service to its specialised clientele. In order to reach this goal, software with very flexible characteristics was required. In addition, SuisseCap wanted a close personal relationship with principals of its software vendor to ensure an extremely high level of service. "In working with Megasol Technologies, we have found a level of commitment to our success through personal contact from its partners and through fast and easy set up of the Corniche back-office and CornicheNet online asset management platform to meet our specific investment management needs, which are driven by our simple mantra - 'Performance, Transparency, Liquidity'. Megasol was able to implement all primary services within three days of contract thanks to its well-designed template system.".

Mårten Törnquist, President of Megasol Technologies, emphasised that the success in achieving a speedy implementation lay in both the skills of the Megasol Technologies technical and training team, and in the preparedness of SuisseCap to get involved proactively in the implementation. "Corniche has been delivered to our customers as a template for some years now. Key to rapid adoption is a focus on how the template must be amended to achieve desired security, operational, accounting and reporting aims. Clients who have clearly rationalised their wants can, with our initial assistance, very quickly change template components or add new elements to meet those wants. SuisseCap personnel came prepared for a fast implementation and the first customer statements were visible in Corniche and CornicheNet within 48 hours from contract signing."

Megasol Technologies is a provider of Corniche private banking software, either licensed outright or through ASP services from its secure server locations in Stockholm or Amsterdam. Based in the university city of Uppsala in Sweden, Megasol serves a worldwide clientele who require a personal relationship with their vendor. Megasol Partners are actively involved with all client installations and ongoing operations so that a close and clear understanding of needs and wants is achieved. For further information, contact Paul de Freitas (+46.18.604930 or +1.800.969.7415).

» Top of Page

2011-02-03

Earthport Direct awarded "Best Alternative Payments System"
Megasol Technologies congratulates its business partner, Earthport, on winning the prestigious "Best Alternative Payments System" award at the 2011 Cards and Payments Awards banquet at The Grosvenor House in London on February 3rd, 2011. Earthport’s global payments engine is linked with Megasol’s Corniche banking system and CornicheNet online banking system to produce a service named Earthport Direct which enables SME’s to quickly and easily take advantage of Earthport’s international banking presence for their payments, both inwards and outwards.

Customers of the Earthport Direct service typically make a payment from their account to another local bank account belonging to Earthport, nominating the final beneficiary account as part of the process. That final beneficiary can be in any country in the world since in countries in which Earthport does not have a banking presence, the SWIFT network is used to effect the final payment using the least expensive route.

The actual Earthport Direct service runs on a special version of Megasol’s Corniche Banking System, and the general public interface is provided to accountholders through a custom version of CornicheNet online banking. Nearly one year of initial testing in-house followed by beta testing with specific clients has resulted in a system which is simple to implement, simple to use and does exactly what it says – providing the best global payments service at the lowest cost.

For customers of the Megasol private banking solution, Corniche, all that is necessary in order to start using Earthport Direct is to apply for the service since Earthport Direct support is built into CornicheNet online banking. For banks and institutions which handle remittances, the Corniche API has been extended to add simple API calls explicitly written for the Earthport Direct service. Any organisation with the skills to add, for example, a merchant account service API, will have no difficulty in quickly adding and testing the Earthport Direct API once their account has been approved.

Megasol’s president, Mårten Törnquist attended the awards ceremony in London and is seen in the photo with the Earthport Direct team and principals of Earthport. He noted “Megasol Technologies has always been prepared to work at the leading edge of the banking industry and our Corniche product includes special features not found in other private banking applications within our market sector. The ability for Corniche to provide the Earthport Direct service in conjunction with the Earthport global payments engine is a further example of the flexibility of Corniche and CornicheNet and ensures that Megasol’s customers continue to receive added value through the Corniche ASP service”.

Partner responsible for internet services, Erik Törnquist, praised the development teams on both sides. “Working with the professionals at Earthport made the process of producing the Corniche services which support Earthport Direct very simple and straightforward. Key to the success of the project has been an imaginative solution, good initial groundwork through proper project planning, and great people to produce the systems within Corniche and CornicheNet”.

For further information on Corniche and its services, please call Megasol on +46.18.604930 or +1.800.969.7415 or write Megasol partner, Paul de Freitas, at pdf@megasol.se. For information on or a demonstration of Earthport Direct, please visit http://www.earthportdirect.com.

» Top of Page

2011-01-27

2011 Card and Payments Awards
On February 3rd, the 2011 Card and Payments awards will be announced at a gala at The Grosvenor House in London. Megasol will be represented at the awards ceremony by Mårten Törnquist, president of Megasol Technologies, who will be on hand to cheer on double award nominee - epDirect - a global payments service for SME's. epDirect is a service which allows smaller companies to easily interface with the Earthport global payments system either through a simple API or through an online portal. The epDirect service runs on Megasol's Corniche banking platform with certain API enhancements to provide the additional compliance and security profiling required for mass payments on a global scale.

epDirect has been nominated in two categories: Best Alternative Payments Programme, and, Best Technology Innovation of the Year. Earthport, whose global payments engine is used to actually effect the epDirect payments, has also been nominated for the categories: Best Corporate Social Responsibility Programme, and, Best Alternative Payments Programme - both for its work with cross-border remittances for the Phillipine National Bank. Phillipine citizens work worldwide, offering a variety of low-tech and high-tech skills, and typically remit most of their wages home to family. epDirect extends the capabilities of the "innovation in remittances" programme to other countries besides the Phillipines.

Mårten Törnquist noted "Great ideas always have their time. Small private banks and companies around the world have been looking for an alternative to the SWIFT payment service which allows them to do their own thing - epDirect is that solution whose time has come. Either by logging onto a simple web service based on our CornicheNet online banking solution, or by adding simple API calls to the company or bank software, global payments are fast and low cost. In fact, an epDirect interface is included in every licence for the Corniche banking system so that banks and other financial institutions using Corniche can provide their clients with immediate effective global payment solutions."

Earthport, an FSA licensed and controlled company, is responsible for compliance and works with epDirect partners to ensure that due diligence is effective. Through its worldwide network of bank accounts, most payments and transfers attract only local fees and once a payment arrives in an Earthport account anywhere in the world, the account of the payee client in a bank which either uses Corniche or the Corniche API into its own software is quickly updated to reflect the received payment.

Whatever the outcome of the awards, Megasol congratulates all finalists and is proud to have provided Corniche as the enabling service for two of the nominations.

» Top of Page

2010-09-22

Cathedral Pleased with Corniche System
Cathedral has reached its six month anniversary of going live on Megasol’s Corniche banking platform. Cathedral’s needs were unusual since they operate some of their instruments in an 52 week cycle rather than a calendar year and have specific rules as to both joining and leaving investment schemes as well as the level and frequency of interest.

Prior to signing up for the Corniche ASP-Service, Cathedral were using a complex database system for managing their core investment services. This resulted in duplication of data from one database to another as required for reporting purposes and the actuality of data in one database being updated while like data in another was not. Corniche’s modern design and intuitive interface has eliminated all errors associated with data replication across different databases.

CornicheNet online banking provides Cathedral customers with direct access to their investment portfolios in real-time, something which was impossible with the old system. Multi-lingual support now allows customers in Central and South America to experience CornicheNet in their choice of language. And with expansion towards Europe on the cards, Cathedral is well equipped to handle a global customer base.

Charles E. Deer, CFO of Cathedral, said “Corniche is one of the most comprehensive financial software solutions for private banking and financial entities. Its intuitive programming allows each of our executives to interact with all of the capabilities of the platform in a secure and controlled way. Its flexibility has allowed it to meet our unusual needs for investment management, and its design helps us to comply with international AML, KYC and other regulations in a simple and easy manner. Megasol support is excellent, and, if you need it, someone is always there to help – 24/7. By far the best banking software for our needs - worldwide.” Marten Tornquist, President of Megasol Technologies, noted that meeting the diverse needs of a global clientele with a centrally managed ASP solution which offers functionality, security and continuity to the new Corniche C5 java-based universal banking solution is key to Megasol’s success. “Our Partners work directly with our clients so that we achieve a deep understanding of needs, problems and solutions. Our clients know that every Partner is available 24/7 to ensure that their smallest needs are quickly met. Cathedral was a case in point in which unusual needs were quickly satisfied and on an ongoing basis we are supplying new functionality to help manage and grow Cathedral’s business. Arising out of this is robust but highly flexible software with some unique features not found in other financial engines. “

Megasol Technologies is a Swedish software house engaged in creating advanced universal banking solutions. Megasol is based in the university town of Uppsala, about an hour north of Stockholm and about 20 minutes from the Stockholm Arlanda International Airport. Megasol partners with international companies to produce value-enhanced products and services for the financial sector. To contact Megasol, please call +46 18 60 43 90 in Europe or +1 800 969-7415 in the Americas.

» Top of Page

2010-09-12

EP-Direct global payments service goes live on Corniche
Megasol Technologies is pleased to announce that epDirect™ (EPD), a gateway service for smaller payment generators into and through the Earthport Universal Payments Network (UPN) and epClearing™ infrastructure, has gone live and is processing payment transactions on Megasol’s Corniche banking platform.

epDirect™ allows secure, trusted, compliant international payments between most countries and is well suited to serve small-to-medium size businesses, whose cross-border transfers tend to be of lower value, and for which other payments services are often not cost effective or suitable. For example, it permits global payments to suppliers of goods or services; movement of funds from a local to a global bank account; or international payroll payments. The customer will simply making a local transfer in the customer’s own country to a local Earthport account which upon receipt is then through UPN immediately available for payment in the target jurisdiction, again using local payment services.

EP-Direct chose Corniche to act as the basis of its payments services because the Corniche system was already successfully integrated with Earthport’s UPN and epClearing™ infrastructure for servicing the needs of a bank, the company knew the Corniche application, respected Megasol’s experience in integration, and it liked the development path which would allow EP-Direct to move to Megasol’s future Corniche 5 leading edge java-based banking solution in a fast and seamless transition when required.

Earthport Plc (Earthport) has been making national and international Bank payments and collections since 1998. Earthport is a public company and is listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) on the London Stock Exchange. Earthport owns, provides and hosts UPN which links an international network of segregated Client Bank Accounts.

Megasol Technologies (www.megasol.se) based in Uppsala, Sweden, produces universal banking software. Because of the flexibility of its engine, the Corniche C3 application has seen service in many other kinds of diverse financial institutions and payment gateways. Since 2007, Megasol has been researching and developing an advanced Java core banking application in partnership with IdealInvent, a Bangalore company with a strong banking consultancy presence in Europe and programming centre in India. Corniche C5 will address the needs of the entire banking spectrum in a series of releases commencing early 2011.

For further information on epDirect please visit http://www.ep-direct.net/.

For further information on Corniche and to arrange a personal demonstration, please contact Paul de Freitas (pdf@megasol.se / +1 800 969-7415 / +46 18 60 49 30).

» Top of Page

2009-10-30

Megasol and IDEALINVENT creates joint venture company for the development of Corniche 5
The IDEALINVENT Group and Megasol Technologies KB announce that they have reached agreement to form a new jointly-owned company, Corniche Development Company KB.

The new company will own the rights to and manage future development of a java-based version of Megasol’s successful Corniche Banking System. IDEALINVENT is contributing its front end suite ProcessMate consisting of workflow management, Consolidated Channel Framework, Teller. CRM, Internetbank and sales support which will be seamlessly interfaced with Corniche, empowering complex task management for the banking front-end and enhanced CRM and KYC to meet compliance standards.

First release to selected early adopters running the current version of Corniche will begin in Q2/2010 with first deliveries to new contracts occurring in Q3/2010.

At a celebratory function at Stockholm’s World Trade Centre on Thursday 29th October 2009, Premkumar Bhagwatsaran, group CEO of IDEALINVENT said “It was important to us to establish a partnership which matched at both the personal and the product level. Megasol is known for the personal attention paid by its management to its customers’ staff at all levels. Its expertise in managing the rapid development of complex financial software combined with the talents of our Bangalore programming team guarantee that we can make promises which we can keep. And the close personal rapport which has built naturally between the top management of IDEALINVENT and the partners of Megasol ensures success for Corniche Development Company.”

Mårten Törnquist, President of Megasol Technologies KB noted “The development of the Corniche java version will be greatly accelerated by this joint venture. The application will set new standards for function, flexibility and form. Our experience in working with innovative customers at the sharp end of private banking together with the years of traditional banking experience which the management of IDEALINVENT brings to the development process will enable the Corniche java version to quickly become the standard by which all new banking software must be measured.”

The Corniche java version will be offered as ASP or SaaS services or through on-site licensing. Its design is both platform and database neutral allowing the use of existing systems capable of supporting Java, HTML and SQL-structured databases.

IDEALINVENT, an ISO 9001:2000 company, is a product and solutions provider to the Banking Financial Service Industry sector based out of Bangalore, India, with offices in Sweden and Lithuania. Over the last years IDEALINVENT has been developing and implementing solutions catering to the specific requirements of the BFSI sector. IDEALINVENT also has wide expertise in Consultancy & Implementation of Core Banking Systems across geographies. IDEALINVENT has 100+ employees across 3 countries. The company web site is at: http://www.idealinvent.com/.

Megasol Technologies KB is a privately owned Swedish company based in the university city of Uppsala. It specialises in leading edge software for the private banking industry through its Corniche product and its associated CornicheNet on-line banking system. It operates hosting facilities in Stockholm and Amsterdam for clients making use of its Corniche application through ASP services. The company’s web site is at: http://www.megasol.se/.

For further information contact:
Premkumar Bhagwatsaran, Group CEO, IDEALINVENT: premkumar.b@idealinvent.com
Mårten Törnquist, President, Megasol Technologies KB: info@megasol.se

» Top of Page