Archive for the ‘eNews’ Category

With warm weather arriving, it is almost time for eNews to take its annual summer hiatus. But while eNews is taking a beach break, our case studies this month prove that the financial industry is not. The insurer Esurance is moving full speed ahead with a new application life-cycle management system that is helping it bring new products to market 20 percent faster. In the ... Full story

The Four County Bank, based in central Georgia, has selected the BancPac core processing solution from Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) for its processing speed, easy integration and its flexible architecture. "Processing speed and core integration were two requirements we sought from the outset of our search. BancPac impressed us in both these areas and became the clear choice to meet our needs," said Lindsay Holloway, ... Full story

Online auto insurer Esurance has cut its development time by an estimated 20 percent through a new application life-cycle management system based on Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. The company employs 90 on-shore and off-shore developers who deliver an average of 50 projects a month, ranging from an update to an existing claims application to a new mobile framework for expanded customer access. "We suffered from ... Full story

Sector Treasury Services, a subsidiary of Capita Group that serves as treasury management and capital financing advisor to UK local authorities, has tapped SunGard Transaction Network's (STN) Money Markets portal to help its local government treasury clients meet short-term investment requirements. STN Money Market Portal will be used to give clients research capabilities and historical data as well as underlying holdings of funds, yield comparisons and ... Full story

Microsoft is hard at work putting the finishing touches on the next major Windows Mobile release, to be known as Windows® Phones. This new generation of Windows® Phones will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and will feature devices with a new finger touch screen interface and rich browsing experience. In addition, Microsoft is introducing two new services: one called Windows Marketplace for Mobile, a ... Full story

One common problem I see in the IT industry is the qualification of IT decisions. I talk to architects from all around the world and hear a lot of creative and innovate ways of solving problems. More often than not, what I don't hear is more concerning. When I have asked: 1. Why did we approach the problem in this manner? 2. How does this align to the ... Full story

This month's eNews includes case studies about a Maryland-based insurer moving to a .NET-based billing system, a bank's move to modernize its core banking platform by centralizing on Temenos's T24, and an Australian firm's expanded use of SunGard's AvantGard to give customers improved tools for handling their treasury risk exposures. We would also like to draw attention this month to our expanded guest contributor categories, ... Full story

By Don Canning, Microsoft Product life cycle management has been a strategic business method used in manufacturing since the industrial revolution. This historic technique is now being applied in the insurance industry in the form of product design and development. Analysts contend this emerging technology trend will continue to offer the insurance industry a new more accurate way of bench testing new product designs saving both ... Full story

By Mike Walker, Microsoft The return on investment of technical documentation is often not realized and documentation is frequently looked upon as a necessary evil. Creating the right architecture descriptions can help guide decision making at the various stages of the IT life cycle, however, there are limitations on formalized structures, information models, and intelligent tooling that takes the current architecture documentation to the next ... Full story

Frederick Mutual Insurance Company (FMIC) is moving to a Web-based billing system from Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Vertafore to add flexibility to its billing and to handle the company's growing billing needs. The new system, called PremiumBill, will support ACH/EFT (Automated Clearing House and Electronic Funds Transfer) electronic payments, advanced flexible bill plan options and automated electronic and/or hardcopy notices. It is a 100 percent Web-based ... Full story