Sterling Commerce Introduces Next Generation Integrated Payments Solution

SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - April 26, 2010) -  Building on its leadership in delivering integrated payments solutions for financial institutions, Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) company, today introduced the next generation of Sterling Total Payments at the NACHA PAYMENTS 2010 conference. The new version provides banks with tools that can incrementally generate additional fee revenue while providing greater value to customers through new capabilities for integrated payables and advanced fraud mitigation. In addition, it helps financial institutions reduce payment processing costs by increasing straight-through processing levels, automating exceptions while in-flight, and improving visibility and management across all payment streams.

"Ongoing payments convergence and downward pressure on revenues make payments hubs more attractive -- and more viable -- than ever before," said Andy Schmidt, research director, Global Payments, at TowerGroup. "Financial institutions that do not invest in improving their payments capabilities risk being left behind by their competitors once global market conditions improve." ["Waiting for the (Payments) Hub: A Play in Three Acts," June 29, 2009]

Sterling Total Payments integrates all payment channels into a single holistic view by building a payments services hub that improves the management and control of payments exceptions, management for domestic and international payments, and compliance. Integrated payables give bank customers the ability to send mixed payment types in a single file, thus reducing costs and improving efficiencies for customers while generating additional revenue for the bank. To support integrated payables, Sterling Total Payments enables banks to support bulk payment files and accept an integrated payables file from their customers. The new version also enhances the solution's industry-leading configuration and processing management capabilities to expand the solution's any-to-any transformation and translation capabilities, providing the ability to identify which payments should be transformed from one payment standard or message type to another.

"Many financial institutions continue to have disparate payment systems by channel and by payment type, leading to fragmented visibility, control and exceptions handling, which is costly and it also exposes them to greater risk," said Jim Gahagan, global financial services industry executive, Sterling Commerce. "In looking at common customer requirements, Sterling Total Payments handles up to 80 percent of these common requirements as standard features. By limiting customization, we help banks ensure project success in assembling a payment services hub better and faster."

Sterling Commerce continues to bolster the financial community worldwide with innovative solutions that help banks increase their revenue streams from corporate clients while reducing risk and cost. Over 90 percent of the Fortune 100 financial services companies and 10 of the top 10 U.S. banks use Sterling Commerce solutions. Sterling Commerce helps organizations achieve new levels of flexibility and control with its collaborative integration and application solutions, offering customers more choice in how they define, deploy and extend those solutions.

Sterling Business Integration Suite offers industry-leading integration, managed file transfer, network and application solutions to banks and their corporate clients for the movement of financial data and transactions across the entire community of customers and business partners. In addition, the Suite supports a comprehensive range of industry standards, enabling consolidated control, validation and visibility of business processes with external organizations and networks, including, for example, NACHA, SWIFTNet, card processors and outsourced service providers. 

About Sterling Commerce
Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) company, helps companies optimize and transform their Business Collaboration Network to accelerate revenues and reduce costs. Sterling Commerce provides more than 18,000 customers worldwide applications and integration solutions to connect, communicate and collaborate inside and outside their enterprise. More information can be found at www.sterlingcommerce.com.

Contact Information:

For more information, contact:
Julie Redard
Sterling Commerce
(978) 513-6386
Julie_Redard@stercomm.com

Jamie Leicht
Fleishman-Hillard
(619) 237-7711
jamiemarie.leicht@fleishman.com