New video online: SDS PROFESSIONAL TESTING. Enables your success in the future today.

In a world driven by innovation, software has become the backbone of every business. But how can responsible software managers ensure maximum reliability and quality?

With SDS PROFESSIONAL TESTING, we scrutinise your software products and guide you toward excellence every step of the way. With more than 20 years of experience and hundreds of successfully managed software projects, our dedicated experts provide the professionalism that will lift your software results to new and unexpected heights.

We combine the power of test automation with agile methods

  • to supercharge your software development process,
  • to ensure faster feedback loops,
  • to enhance product quality
  • and to achieve greater efficiency

in delivering solutions that align with your dynamic business needs.

In the process, our testing experts work closely with your agile teams, seamlessly integrating quality into every step to increase productivity, optimise costs and quickly deliver valuable products to your demanding customers.

Watch our new sales video and learn how we implement superior test and test automation solutions that are completely integrated into your agile software developments.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

The Future of Tax: Exclusive SDS panel discussion about the future of Withholding Taxes across Europe at the 2021 FS Tax Conference.

On 10 & 11 November the Financial Services Tax Conference will take place virtually in 2021. Over 2 days, 40+ speakers will address a global audience on a range of industry issues in 14 thematic sessions. Pairing leading industry expertise with topics that have great scope for intriguing debate, the conference offers an engaging experience in an intimate conference setting. So does SDS with its exclusive panel discussion on 10 November 2021. Topic: Withholding taxes across Europe (TRACE). Get ready and join the conversation.

We would be delighted to meet you virtually. Register today!

Michel Grandchamp becomes the new SDS Chief Financial Officer.

Michel Grandchamp (50) will take over the role of Director Finance and Controlling at SDS as of September 2021. As a member of the Management Board, he will be responsible together with Managing Director Ernst Kendlbacher for the continued success and growth of SDS in its core and target markets in Europe. Michel Grandchamp will also assume the role of Vice President Finance and Controlling at T-Systems Alpine (Austria & Switzerland), where he will be responsible for the finances of the highest-revenue region outside Germany, also as a member of the Management Board.

Michel Grandchamp has held various positions at T-Systems since 2007, both internationally and in Switzerland, France and the Netherlands. Most recently, Grandchamp held the position of Vice President Finance and Controlling at T-Systems France and T-Systems Netherlands. “I am looking forward to continuing the success story of T-Systems Alpine and to actively shaping its growth and further development,” says Grandchamp.  In addition to his participation in Deutsche Telekom’s Leadership Programme, he also completed management training with the Swiss Army. Grandchamp started his professional career in 1995 at IBM in Switzerland. He sought his next challenges at UUNET GmbH / MCI WorldCom AG in Geneva and Zurich and Global Crossing, where he was Sales Manager for the DACH region and Scandinavia. Grandchamp studied at the University of Bern and holds a licentiate in business administration. Further studies took him to Oxford University and the University of St. Gallen.

Grandchamp is a British and Swiss citizen and speaks German, English and French. A keen skier, he lives in Biel, Switzerland, and is married with three children.

To what extent will AI be able to help us improve or even replace manual software testing in the future?

The future of software testing lies in a strong increase in the degree of automation, with a special focus on fast availability, changeability, and maintainability in agile projects. The path to fast and fail-safe test automation leads via the use of artificial intelligence to achieve the best possible quality on time and at low cost. Learn more about the most exciting questions on the topic in our next SDS WEBINAR, created together with leading telco industry experts (available in German only). Watch here.

SDS Achieves Oracle Exadata Optimized Status. Oracle recognizes SDS GEOS for processing securities 8X faster on Oracle Exadata Database Machine.

SDS (Software Daten Service) today announced it has earned Oracle Exadata Optimized status through Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), demonstrating that SDS GEOS 7.9.0 has been tested and tuned on Oracle Exadata Database Machine to deliver speed, scalability, and reliability to customers. SDS is a Platinum level member of OPN.

Only a few companies manage to set new digital standards with the disruptive change happening in the financial industry and at the same time guarantee security in maximum performance dimensions. As part of a proof of concept (PoC) conducted at the Oracle Solutions Center, the throughput of SDS GEOS securities order processing was measured. The test of SDS GEOS 7.9.0 was conducted on an Oracle Exadata X8M configured as a database system with a two-node RAC, with a total of 32 CPU cores and 64GB memory assigned to the workload, which resulted in a more than convincing throughput of 795.9 orders/sec compared to the currently acceptable100 to 400 orders per second. This clearly demonstrates that SDS GEOS runs very efficiently on Oracle Exadata Database Machine and that SDS is a future-proof and secure partner for the highest workloads.

Oracle Exadata Optimized is part of the Oracle Exastack Optimized program which enables partners, such as SDS, to leverage OPN enablement resources and dedicated lab environments to help develop, test, and tune their applications on Oracle Exadata engineered systems.

By achieving Oracle Exadata Optimized status, Oracle recognizes SDS for developing, testing, and tuning SDS GEOS on Oracle Exadata. This accomplishment is a testament to SDS’s ability to deliver the extreme performance and reliability customers require.

“Together with Oracle, SDS was able to test a new performance dimension in the processing of securities orders. This is a very important indicator that shows the limits of the performance of banking systems and associated transaction service providers can be surpassed, especially when needed in a volatile and strongly crisis-driven trading environment. A level of around 100 to 400 orders per second is usually sufficient for large securities traders in the most significant financial markets in Europe to guarantee their customers an immediate dispatch to the trading center even in times of extremely high order volumes. This requirement was outperformed by up to 700% in our laboratory test, providing clear evidence that SDS GEOS runs very efficiently on Oracle and that SDS is a future-proof and secure partner for the highest workloads in this technology stack,” comments SDS Managing Director Ernst Kendlbacher on the results for Oracle Exastack Optimized.

“Oracle Exastack Optimized recognizes partners who have optimized their solutions on a complete, integrated and cloud-ready infrastructure in order to help them accelerate innovation, unlock new features and functionality, and deliver superior value to users,” said David Hicks, Vice President, Worldwide ISV Ecosystem Business Development, Oracle. “By achieving Oracle Exadata Optimized status, SDS has demonstrated that SDS GEOS is tested and tuned to work with Oracle Exadata to help deliver optimum performance, scalability, and reliability to their customers.”

To find out more, visit http://www.sds.athttp://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/exastackhttp://www.oracle.com/partners.

Raiffeisen Banking Group and banking technology partner SDS announce further joint future plans.

The Raiffeisen Banking Group and SDS announce the signing of a cooperation agreement for further years. The Austrian Raiffeisen Banking Group is the country’s largest banking group with the densest network of banks and around 2.8 million retail customers in Austria. Via Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), the group is represented in 13 markets in Central and Eastern Europe. The Austrian company SDS (Software Daten Service) is one of the leading providers of modern banking technologies in securities processing, tax, and compliance automation as well as associated services in Europe. Via its owner T-Systems International, it is part of Deutsche Telekom AG.

The two companies can look back at a long and successful history together. Before SDS was taken over by T-Systems International in 2004, SDS with its flagship product SDS GEOS had been owned by RZB (Raiffeisen Zentralbank) for 11 years, which itself took over the banking software provider from Schoellerbank in 1993. During this partnership of almost 30 years, not only one of the most competitive solutions for automated securities and derivative processing in Europe was developed in the form of SDS GEOS, but also a comprehensive portfolio of internationally successful additional products for tax regulation or securities compliance and a software testing division that is strongly sought after in German-speaking countries, including companies outside the banking sector, was created.

Through the specialised subsidiaries and associated companies of the Raiffeisen Banking Group, it is possible to meet the individual needs of each customer group and to provide an all-round financial service “under one roof”. For example, RBI in Austria is specialised on commercial banking and investment banking business and advises the country’s top 1,000 companies as a corporate finance bank and a bank for export financing. The all-round financial service of the Raiffeisen banking group also includes financial services of Raiffeisen specialist companies such as the investment company Raiffeisen Capital Management, Raiffeisen Versicherung, Raiffeisen-Leasing or Raiffeisen Bausparkasse.

The Raiffeisen Banking Group must count on a strong, reliable, and innovative technology partner not only because of its great international market success but also, and in particular, to ensure future competitiveness in the light of the dynamic changes in international banking. These changes are driven by growing market and consumer digitalisation, the demand for and use of artificial intelligence, disruptive market participants, and the highest efficiency and response requirements, to mention only the most important of the current challenges.

SDS Managing Director Ernst Kendlbacher comments: “We are in the middle of a digital revolution in the banking sector. Innovations in terms of creating new processes and adapting to new technologies are essential for a healthy future. Raiffeisen will continue to purchase SDS products on a large scale in the future, thus further demonstrating its confidence in our portfolio. The new contract also includes all relevant security and regulatory requirements for the Raiffeisen group. A great success for both contract partners.” Edzard Janssen, Head of Group Procurement, Outsourcing, and Cost Management of Raiffeisen Bank International AG adds:  In order to be sustainably successful in competition, it is important to work with professional and innovative partners.”

Banking technology in transition. SDS IREG successfully deployed.

The financial industry is facing dynamic changes in terms of IT infrastructure and operations that are hard to predict. Whereas in the past decade strategy and business models, in particular, have been questioned and revised, not least due to massive regulatory changes and the entry of new competitors such as FinTechs, “innovative technologies” and “digitalization” are now the top issues that decisively determine the competitiveness of a financial intermediary.

A key to success in accomplishing these tasks could be the advancing cloudification of back-end solutions. Whether for internal processes, organization, or the development of new business models and customer benefit – the opportunities offered by the topic of ‘Cloud’ have a positive effect on the progress of market participants in the international financial industry. Despite initial obstacles, whether in connection with security, legal, business, or technology issues, the signs point to growth. Decision-makers in banks put established processes to the test, assessments determine the best way into the cloud and experts rack their brains over the latest product and its placement on the market.

SDS relies on standard market cloud concepts and provides software solutions based on these standards. Our products can be operated on-premises as well as in the private or the public cloud. The possibility of switching at any time increases the independence of a financial institution that can comply with the requirements of the regulator, react immediately to relaxations/restrictions, and thus always produce at optimum cost. SDS licensees can thus continue to meet the growing needs in a dynamic market environment and secure their competitiveness in the long run. In foreign tax reporting with the QI, FATCA, and CRS regimes, deployment in a cloud environment is particularly useful: The creation of reports is performed based on the target date, in short, labor-intensive periods. With SDS IREG, SDS is now able to offer a sophisticated and comprehensive solution in a highly efficient deployment model.

Find out more about the competitive situation, advantages, and disadvantages of cloud applications in our SDS REPORT on the subject.

SDS reinforces product management with UniCredit top manager Susanna Scheffold.

SDS (Software Daten Service) is a leading European provider of digital software and service solutions for the international financial service industry. With SDS GEOS, SDS provides a highly competitive off-the-shelf software for automated and global securities processing. For 2020, SDS expects processing volumes of about 100 million transactions via SDS GEOS applications at renowned banks all over Europe.

In order to further expand continuous business growth and the strong competitiveness of SDS GEOS, Susanna Scheffold will take on the position of Head of Product Management SDS GEOS. Susanna Scheffold already had product and customer responsibility in her leadership role of custody business for Austria and CEE at the Global Securities Services of the UniCredit group. Until 2016, she was successfully active at this group in various national and international segments in the context of securities operations, NAV calculation, Run and Change of the processing systems or efficiency strategies.

“Extensive industry knowledge is the prerequisite for the development of outstanding product solutions. SDS has always placed great importance on having profound and comprehensive banking know-how available within the team in addition to IT expertise in order to develop the best software solutions for the financial industry. With Susanna Scheffold, we gain a top expert and an industry insider,” adds Ernst Kendlbacher, SDS Managing Director.

Software vendor SDS pushes the software testing business in the DACH region and in new industries.

Future-oriented applications push ahead the digital high-performance business. IT managers worldwide are looking for smart, innovative solutions for enhancing software quality. Digital transformation requires constant acceleration of the implementation with a simultaneous reduction of the production costs.

With SDS Professional Testing, SDS can demonstrably make an important contribution to coping with these challenges successfully. As a leading and highly specialised European software vendor, SDS can opt for a more holistic and analytical approach in dealing with requirements regarding state-of-the-future software testing. This fact is confirmed by renowned SDS customers from the financial industry and the telecommunications sector.

Instead of only testing with a focus on quality at the end, SDS Professional Testing covers all required tasks in the entire application life cycle – from the requirements analysis to the user acceptance test – with a high level of quality. In this context, SDS extensively and directly cooperates with its customers in order to significantly improve test productivity. Beyond the option of automated test execution, we are developing innovative approaches for the digitisation of testing workflows: Machine learning-based defect management for testing or production, automation of test data management by means of intelligent selection of available test data, automatic monitoring, analysis and fixing of issues in the test environment, etc.

The decisive advantage of SDS: experienced, certified top-level test engineers with a proven track record in large-scale E2E projects from software vendor, user and IT operation perspective as well as over 40 years of experience as software vendor in the highly sensitive banking technology environment and more than 10 years of experience in more than 700 digital transformation projects. For more information and contact options, please see testing.sds.at.

Big Four auditor signs global business cooperation with SDS.

SDS will further expand the performance of its market-leading reporting software SDS IREG in collaboration with the renowned partner. Through this cooperation, SDS will increase the implementation speed of regulatory changes and thus ensure that SDS IREG continues to comply with the latest regulations. SDS IREG customers benefit from early information about new or changed requirements of the reporting regimes. Since its launch in July 2011, SDS IREG has been able to continually attain the highest degree of automation and compliance in international reporting. With more than 3,000 reporting FIs in more than 80 countries, SDS IREG is among the leading tax reporting applications worldwide. Moreover, by means of STP (Straight Through Processing), SDS IREG enables international financial institutions and service providers (such as tax consultants) to cover multiple reporting obligations (CRS, FATCA, QI, Italian FTT) with a single application and minimum resources.