News
TIPS – SWIFTNet Instant
Target Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) is now available through AEG Service Bureau
SWIFT has announced lately that SWIFTNet Instant is now live on the Eurosystem’s Target instant payment settlement (TIPS). And it is now available through AEG Service Bureau. SWIFTNet Instant enables access through a single user interface to multiple instant payments systems in Europe for both domestic and cross-border payments.
Alliance Gateway Instant (AGI) will be used to assure the connectivity between the AEG Service Bureau and the SWIFTNet Instant network. AGI is highly secure, has a light weight footprint and resilient configurations. In the case of Handling TIPS, AEG MidSys3 application will provide the needed functionality in order for the financial institutions to exchange TIPS Messages.
AEG MidSys3 application is an essential prerequisite for this solution where the following features will be provided:
- Mapping TIPS messages from Back Office Proprietary format to the Standard TIPS format;
- Providing the LAU function. This module is an Application-to-Application authentication solution. The first Application will authenticate the batch generated from its side with a HASH. The corresponding application will very this HASH, upload the file in case the HASH is valid and reject it otherwise;
- Handling the signature into Business Application Header/Business File Header (BAF/BFH) and also Verify incoming signatures in the BAH/BFH.
- Performing format Validation. The solution applies all the semantics and syntactic validations relevant to each MX/MT based on Target2 schema and rules.
A New Partnership
AEG is partnering with Ivanti to bring the best to you
As a part of AEG’s continuous strive to bring the best to its clients and to provide cutting-edge solutions, AEG always looks to partner with leaders in the field.
We are pleased to announce our new partnership with Ivanti, a leader in the IT software business. We are particularly leveraging their solutions for application control and application lifecycle management. These solutions are intended to facilitate and automate tasks that otherwise are time-consuming and hectic when done manually. A brief is provided in the following article under the names of SmartControl and SmartPatch.
New Products
In line with its mission, AEG is always in the course of looking for opportunities to cater for the needs of its clients and serving them state-of-the-art solutions. Whether partnered or inhouse solutions, AEG seeks to serve what the financial community truly wants and needs. Below is a brief list of our new products:
SmartControl offers IT unprecedented control over endpoints, reducing security risk while providing a great user experience in the latest Windows environments. This solution delivers secure Windows privilege management that lets you remove user full-admin rights and prevents unauthorized executables such as malware, ransomware, unlicensed software, and other unknown applications from being installed or executed. SmartControl enables your IT team to manage application access and user privileges efficiently across your desktop and server estate.
SmartPatch covers everything related to application lifecycle management and patching. It finds online and offline systems, scans for missing patches and deploys them.
Password Manager: When it comes to this baffling amount of sensitive, password-protected data across so many streams and team members, responsible organization becomes a must for a streamlined work flow. Luckily, Team Password Manager can take care of all of these common problems, fix your work flow, and make password management easier across all teams, departments, and organizations.
AEG Internet Proxy is easy-to-use and powerful proxy server. AEG Internet Proxy can support broadband, DSL, dial-up, optical fiber, satellite, ISDN and DDN connections, it helps you build your own proxy server and share Internet connection within the LAN efficiently and easily.
AEG Snap Tool is a disk imaging software that enables the user to back up, restore and view backed up hard disk data, easily and safely.
Beirut Port Explosion Aftermath
The most prominent incident this year in Lebanon, on top of the economic crisis and COVID-19, is the enormous explosion that stroke the Port of Beirut ramming the whole city, killing 204 people, injuring over 6,500, and leaving over 300,000 people homeless.
Many businesses were affected, especially those that are close to the area of the explosion, including one of our main connectivity providers, whom the blast severely damaged their data center. Despite the sad news, our redundancy plan secured the connectivity of our clients and the transfer was seamless. Moreover, our emails were switched to a secondary domain as the primary was affected as well. This maintained a normal communication with our clients allowing them to open tickets, receive support and make requests. Within the given circumstances, we consider this year a success story as AEG has, once again, proven its resilience and reliability. This is, in fact, the promise AEG makes to its clients, and strives to meet every single time.
The COVID-19 Experience
The persistence of the pandemic over several months with no clear foresight of when it is going to end made us adapt much quicker to the new facts and force solid measures in order to keep our business up and running.
Due to the regular enhancements of our Business Continuity Plan, our teams were already trained and prepared for certain limitations that they were faced with. However, the elongated period has brought about some challenges that could not be avoided, but again, we have been dealing with them in the sense that kept the functionality as high as possible within the circumstances.
First, there were some complications arising from the logistic issues due to lockdown and curfew imposed by governments at the countries of our clients. This may have caused some delays while we would be waiting for our clients to be operating and able to cooperate with us. Moreover, remote communication has been a real changer of the game, because our clients are used to our engineers visiting their premises, operating on site and communicating their issues in person.
Our staff members got used to the new situation and are finding ways to optimize functionalities by creating alternative proactive plans. This induces creativity, problem solving skills, risk management skills, and brings about the best in each and every employee at AEG. We sure hope this pandemic gets over as soon as possible after all the bad ways it has impacted people around the world, yet, we cannot deny that it has given us many lessons on the business and personal levels equally.
AEG MT-ISO Converter
All financial institutions processing SWIFT MT Category 1, 2 and 9 series messages must be able to receive and process Cross-border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+) compliant ISO 20022 messages. Optionally, financial institutions with significant intermediary business, where compliance is required, should also be able to send CBPR+ compliant ISO 20022 messages based on received ISO 20022 payments. Conformance to CBPR+ specifications will be validated by the SWIFT messaging service, so it is imperative that bank implements the specifications correctly.
AEG MT-ISO Converter with its advanced and robust features plays an important role in adopting the ISO20022 migration by anticipating their business requirements and complying with CBPR+ defined rules and standards. This also helps the bank to focus on a single point of implementing the ISO20022 instead of making the changes on all the back-end applications.
Universal Payment Confirmation
Starting 22 November 2020, SWIFT mandates FIN users to confirm to the Tracker when a payment (MT 103) has been credited to the account of the beneficiary, placed on hold or transferred outside of SWIFT within a maximum of two business days following the value date in the MT 103.
AEG Universal Payment Confirmation (AEG-UPC), an inhouse application, automates the process of sending confirmations to the Tracker on the payment status in compliance with SWIFT requirements. AEG-UPC is already an integrated module in AEG gpi-PRO application if the bank is a gpi member. However, if the bank is not a gpi member, AEG-UPC can work as a stand-alone application to perform the confirmations to the Tracker automatically.
AEG Listed as CSP Assessor
Ever since the first release of CSP in 2016, AEG has been working closely with its clients providing consultancy, guidance and support concerning the compliance with SWIFT’s CSCF framework. In the past four years, AEG performed security awareness sessions, security assessments, risk assessments, penetration testing, along with various activities to detect vulnerabilities, risks and gaps. Moreover, AEG has also been providing security and business continuity products in the quest of keeping its clients protected and compliant. With all the CSP projects that we have done, we have always had satisfying results and contented clients.
Today, AEG is proud to announce that it has been listed on SWIFT’s directory of CSP assessment providers. Being acknowledged as an assessor will undoubtedly strengthen the trust of our current and future clients; the trust that we highly value, appreciate, and work hard to maintain.
Go to SWIFT CSP Assessment Providers Directory NOTE: SWIFT does not certify, warrant, endorse or recommend any service provider listed in its directory and SWIFT customers are not required to use providers listed in the directory
