LONDON, 19th May, 2010 – SMA Financial (www.sma.co.uk), SWIFT Regional partner for UK, Eire and the Channel Islands today announced that Vodafone, the international mobile telecommunications group, has completed a migration project to move its SWIFT connectivity to the outsourced SMA Service Bureau.  The project will free up staff time and enable easier access to value-added services, whilst offering future proof scalability and flexibility around Vodafone Treasury’s payment processing using the SWIFT network.

SMA first assisted Vodafone with implementing an in-house independent connection to SWIFT.  However maintaining the infrastructure was proving to be increasingly time consuming and challenging to manage and Vodafone wanted to explore other SWIFT connectivity options.  Following an evaluation of the availability and maturity of outsourced Bureaux, Vodafone selected SMA’s SWIFT Service Bureau.

Fraser Lee, Treasury Systems Manager, Vodafone explains, “We have a long standing relationship with SMA Financial and their consultants already had a detailed understanding of our SWIFT Infrastructure and requirements.  A key reason for choosing SMA’s Service Bureau is that it has the highest level of accreditation from SWIFT and is backed up by one of the world’s largest teams of accredited consultants.  Additionally as SMA is a SWIFT specialist, we felt that they were best positioned to support our on-going requirements and the right long term SWIFT partner for us.”

Vodafone operates a centralised treasury that funds all group subsidiaries from the UK.  It makes payments, sends and receives statements over SWIFT from its treasury management system via the SMA Service Bureau.  The total value of payments made on a daily basis runs into millions of pounds therefore payment processing is central to maintaining efficient cash and treasury management.

Lee adds, “SMA ensured that the migration, setup and testing of our SWIFT connectivity was a straightforward process and the service that we have received has been responsive and knowledgeable.  By entrusting the management of our critical SWIFT connectivity to SMA we have insulated ourselves from the impact of any future changes to SWIFT or any increase in our payment volumes.  We have also been able to move our focus away from systems maintenance which frees up valuable time to be spent on leveraging other SWIFT capabilities that will deliver incremental value for Vodafone.”

Neil Gray, Director Corporate Solutions for UK and Ireland at SWIFT added, “An outsourced Service Bureau is proving the favoured connectivity model for  many large corporates as it provides an easy, cost-effective and scaleable means of accessing the SWIFT network. By freeing up resources that would otherwise have been involved in managing the SWIFT infrastructure in-house, it also allows the treasury department to focus on other more profitable and value-added activities.”

Simon Murby, Managing Director, SMA Financial concluded, “The project at Vodafone highlights how corporates can benefit from outsourcing their SWIFT connectivity to a proven Service Bureau.  Our deep domain knowledge ensures that can help corporates that are looking to make better use of the secure SWIFT network and related services to increase payment processing efficiency, increase straight-through processing (STP) and reduce operational risk.”

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About SMA Financial
Founded in 1995, SMA Financial has established its leadership as a source of specialist knowledge and expertise in the financial services industry providing SWIFT services, product and support.  SMA Financial is the SWIFT Regional Partner for UK, Ireland and the Channel Islands. It is the most extensively SWIFT accredited partner with over 300 successful implementations with banks, corporates and other financial institutions including more than 100 active SWIFT Service Bureau users.  The company provides SWIFT Service Bureau, AML and SystemCare solutions as well as experienced consultancy services.  For further information please visit www.sma.co.uk

About Vodafone
Vodafone is the world's leading international mobile communications group with approximately 333 million proportionate customers as at 31 December 2009. Vodafone currently has equity interests in 31 countries across five continents and around 40 partner networks worldwide. For more information, please visit www.vodafone.com.

About SWIFT
SWIFT is a member-owned cooperative that provides the communications platform, products and services to connect over 8,500 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in more than 200 countries. SWIFT enables its users to exchange automated, standardised financial information securely and reliably, thereby lowering costs, reducing operational risk and eliminating operational inefficiencies. SWIFT also brings the financial community together to work collaboratively to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest. For more information, please refer to SWIFT’s website www.swift.com

Press contact: Jenny Swift, Rivercalm: Tel : +44 207 152 6118 Email: [email protected]