SunGard has announced the launch of Ambit, a new brand and a new software strategy for its banking solutions for retail, commercial and private banks.

An announcement to this effect was made in a communication received here on Wednesday.

It said that SunGard’s Ambit brings together the technology of a range of SunGard solutions and the experience of a global team of industry experts that already serve more than 800 banks in 70 countries, including 41 of the world’s top 50 banks.

It was pointed out that Ambit provides banking professionals with software solutions that support front-, middle- and back-office operations, as well as solutions for financial management, risk and compliance.

SunGard’s extensive customer base in banking has helped it to understand banks common requirements as they try to build the bank of the future. Inflexible legacy systems, competition from new entrants, and new demands from customers to access their data anytime, anyhow are driving banks to look for new, strategic technology initiatives to help them renew and upgrade their core banking systems.

Adopting a service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach and streamlining their business processes are objectives that many banks are seeking to achieve.

Ken Dummitt, president of SunGard’s banks and corporations business, commented: `Our customers have told us that we can help them achieve their business objectives by doing three things: reduce the number of systems that underpin their business; improve the flexibility and extensibility of the systems that remain; and reduce the number of software vendors they use.

It was further stated that Ambit gives banks a way to address each of these objectives; it creates an easier way for retail, commercial and private banks to do business with SunGard.

Ambit’s functionality covers areas such as: core banking; customer service management; multi-channel and branch delivery; card management; reporting and document management; asset/liability management; treasury; liquidity and wealth management; economic capital; Basel II; market and credit risk management and business process management (BPM).

It is comprised of business processes and functionality from the following SunGard solutions: Apsys; BancWare; AvantGard; STeP and System Access.

Ambit makes use of SunGard’s Infinity, a software development environment, business process management platform and on-demand software-as-a-service delivery mechanism.     This environment provides the infrastructure for creating, registering, developing, integrating, deploying, running and managing SunGard’s Ambit applications as software services.

At present, Ambit is able to offer solution bundles and integration between point solutions, delivering a more seamless user experience. With Infinity, Ambit will evolve towards full product integration and component re-use.

Customers will be able to use SunGard’s banking software assets by orchestrating business requirements across applications, as well as integrating Ambit components with their own proprietary or third-party applications.

Suzanne Sisolak, group vice president, global banking solutions at SunGard, commented: `More than 800 banks in 70 countries already benefit from our understanding of their unique business processes. The launch of Ambit comes from listening to these customers about how they want to build the bank of the future.  We are changing from solving small parts of our customers problem to solving their biggest technology problem. Ambit allows SunGard to be a transformation partner for our customers on their journey to becoming bank of the future’.