Oracle Corporation and Unisys Corporation announced today that they will adapt key Unisys payment solutions to utilize Oracle® Database10g and Oracle interMedia. The agreement will extend both organizations’ ability to deliver a comprehensive enterprise payments solution that helps financial services institutions improve their efficiency, profitability and risk management, elevate customer satisfaction and enhance shareholder value.

Banks historically have struggled to determine the true enterprise-wide cost and profitability of their payments operations as most systems manage information around individual product lines, eliminating the ability to aggregate and analyze data. By combining information, regardless of the type of payment or its form, into an “all-payments” engine and archive, Unisys and Oracle will allow financial institutions to import, capture, store, manage and use transactional data more intelligently. The Unisys solutions incorporate a payment information engine and archive for images and data that can track and use information more effectively across an entire financial institution. As a result, the solutions help banks achieve greater cost and operational efficiencies.

“Combining Oracle’s Corporate Performance Management applications and database technology with leading payments applications from Unisys and other vendors will enable us to provide financial institutions with enterprise-wide management control based on key performance indicators to better understand the bank’s complete payments business, including costs, profitability, risk-adjusted performance, planning and budgeting to develop improved strategies and tactics for the future,” said Andrea Klein, vice president, financial services industry marketing, Oracle Corp.

The Unisys payment information engine is flexible and configurable, offering a more strategic view of best operating practices to deploy across a company to save costs. The web-based engine can access a variety of external systems and internal image databases, providing complete payment histories. The companion archive provides a comprehensive storage capability that consolidates various types of payments information (both paper and electronic) into a single repository.

“This agreement further extends our enterprise payments capabilities, while giving Oracle customers unprecedented visibility into their payment products,” said Gary Cawthorne, vice president and managing partner of the Global Banking practice at Unisys. “Armed with the detailed information our solutions provide, banks can more easily implement new business practices to improve efficiencies and customer service.”

With the Oracle Database 10g—which features Oracle interMedia, a tool that allows users to manage multimedia content within the database—financial institutions can store check images with associated payment data (including related voicemail and email messages) for a complete view of payment transactions. Competing solutions more commonly store images and data in different repositories, requiring organizations to undertake complex and costly integration initiatives to bring all necessary information together, adding cost and complexity to their IT infrastructures.

Oracle and Unisys will deliver the new solutions globally, as well as integrate them with offerings from other leading financial services software vendors. The agreement strengthens the organizations’ leadership in helping banks develop strategic payment strategies that integrate seamlessly with numerous partners and platforms. Unisys is also a Certified Advantage Partner in Oracle Partner Network.