IT giant IBM has become the latest member of the Banking Industry Architecture Network, a consortium that is promoting the development and use of a service-oriented architecture standard in the banking industry.

Launched in 2008, BIAN is gathering momentum, its supporters say. In 2011, nine new members joined, and the consortium launched its new service landscape. The addition of IBM is seen as something of a landmark.

As well as becoming a full member of the BIAN community, Chae An, IBM's vice president of financial services solutions, will take a position on BIAN's Board.

"Expanding into the US is one of BIAN's strategic objectives for 2012, and given IBM's huge presence in the US banking space, we are now even better positioned to achieve this goa "We soon hope to welcome the first US banks as members, joining fellow North American bank, Scotiabank, which joined BIAN in 2011 l," said Hans Tesselaar executive director of BIAN. "Many of IBM's existing clients use BIAN models, and had expressed an interest in aligning more with an open standard, while maintaining their investment in the IBM industry models. For IBM, this is a positive strategic alliance which marks a shift from closed, proprietary standards, to an open interoperable and global environment."

IBM's An said: "Open standards create interoperability and accelerate the adoption of new technologies that help industries work more intelligently. BIAN's collaboration with industry groups such as the Object Management Group and Swift demonstrates its commitment to making its banking models more valuable to its members. Through the BIAN community, IBM will continue working to address the requirements of financial institutions through solutions based on open standards."

Currently BIAN has 30 members among the banking and software industries, including ING, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Credit Suisse, Microsoft, Scotiabank, SAP, Callataÿ & Wouters, Infosys, SunGard and Temenos. It has recently published its latest deliverables: the BIAN Service Landscape version 1.5, and supporting documents as a reference framework for banks.

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