The Banque et Caisse d’Epargne de l’Etat, (BCEE) pro-cesses more than one million SWIFT and SEPA messag-es every day. The bank’s previous conversion software had become outdated and new Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) software was needed. This didn’t just have to be robust enough to process the large volume of messages; it also had to offer high availability at a lower operational cost.

1. BCEE uses BizTalk for more efficient
information exchange and conversions
The Banque et Caisse d’Epargne de l’Etat, (BCEE) pro-
cesses more than one million SWIFT and SEPA messag-
es every day. The bank’s previous conversion software
had become outdated and new Enterprise Application
Integration (EAI) software was needed. This didn’t just
have to be robust enough to process the large volume
of messages; it also had to offer high availability at a
lower operational cost.
The bank opted for Microsoft software and the .Net
development environment ten years ago, and it recent-
ly added Microsoft BizTalk after a comparative study.
This software is easy to install, maintain and scale up,
and it offers more possibilities than the previous sys-
tem. BCEE can now use add-ons such as Microsoft
BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT, which considerably re-
duces the time needed for implementation of Swift
messages. So the bank is now saving time and money
on new software development, thanks to Microsoft
BizTalk.
country: Luxembourg
sector: Financial sector
profile
BCEE is more than 150 years old and one of the
safest banks in the world. This is partly due to the
institution’s sole shareholder, the Luxembourg
State. The bank also has a good reputation with
credit agencies and clients for its customer focus
and reliability.
challenge
The BCEE processes more than one million SWIFT
and SEPA messages every day. The bank’s previous
software had become outdated and a new Enter-
prise Application Integration (EAI) software was
needed in order to remain competitive. The bank
Microsoft BizTalk

2. opted for Microsoft products for its software devel-
opment ten years ago.
solution
The BCEE chose Microsoft BizTalk following a com-
parative study between two types of EAI software.
This software is powerful enough to effortlessly
process more than one million messages every day,
and also has other benefits such as add-ons with
pre-programmed functions.
advantages
Û Easy to install, maintain and scale up
Û Stable and reliable software
Û Processes 1,000,000 messages per day
Û Support from Microsoft over the very long
term
Û Large collection of add-ons
Û Downtime is non-existent
Û Developers work faster
Û Identify software problems faster
Û Relatively inexpensive to use
Û Works with all existing applications
software&services
Developer Tools
Visual Studio 2012
Microsoft Technologies
Host Integration Server
BizTalk Server
The Banque et Caisse d’Epargne de l’Etat, (BCEE) processes
over one million SWIFT and SEPA messages every day
with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2013.
The bank already used an Enterprise Application Integra-
tion (EAI) software, but it had become outdated. So the
BCEE performed a comparative study between two types
of EAI software before choosing Microsoft BizTalk. Since
its introduction, BizTalk Server has proven to be very ro-
bust software. It offers high availability, which is absolutely
essential for this type of product, and saves the bank lots
of programming work.
Time-saving add-ons for BizTalk
“The SWIFT and SEPA messages are converted into XML
messages for internal use and vice versa. From a function-
al perspective, this makes BizTalk apparently generic soft-
ware,” says Steve Melan, Head of IT Architects for BCEE.
“And we do indeed use the software for converting and
exchanging data, but the BizTalk Server is also much easi-
er to install, maintain and scale up than other software.
The add-ons are an even bigger advantage. Microsoft
provides a free BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT, for example,
which is updated every year. This free add-on has saved
us weeks of time programming the SWIFT message for-
mat.”
Another add-on which saves just as much time is RA-
ShortCut for FIX, which has similar functions for convert-
ing Financial Information eXchange (FIX), the standard
messages used in the financial markets. This add-on is
being used on another IT project that is going live at the
bank soon. Alain Mercier, Deputy Head of the IT Depart-
ment: “Even though this software isn’t free, it saves us lots
of time. We don’t have to spend weeks programming the
data mapping ourselves. This means Microsoft is a lot less
expensive, also because the software runs on standard
Windows hardware, the most affordable server environ-
ment.”
Microsoft.Net for all applications
“Our preference for BizTalk is partly based on the strategic
choice we made for Microsoft products ten years ago,”
explains Steve Melan. “That was when we decided to de-
velop all our new applications in the same framework.
Since then, everything has been done using Microsoft.Net.
We made this decision because it was clear that Microsoft

3. was going to continue supporting this platform for
many years to come. At the time it was less obvious
who was going to take full responsibility for Java in
the long term.” BCEE has been working with
Microsoft products for ten years now, ever since the
bank started using the BizTalk Host Integration
Server as its gateway software.
The IT department held a poll with developers to
choose the application framework and development
tools. They opted for Microsoft VB.NET with Visual
Studio, which the bank is still using today. Steve
Melan: “Their choice was inspired by the fact that
they were already used to developing privately in
VB.NET, and because the step from Cobol to Visual
Basic is a relatively simple one to make.”
“We’re still very happy with the switch we made to
VB.NET. Our developers work faster and so deliver
new banking software more quickly. Debugging
runs more smoothly too because it’s easier to iden-
tify the cause of any problems. All this has a positive
impact on our downtime, which is now almost non-
existent, apart from during maintenance,” continues
Steve Melan. ”It allows us to run more applications
on Windows Server systems and take them away
from our mainframe. The cost-savings are substan-
tial.”
BizTalk important for software develop-
ment
The development teams are now very familiar with
everything that BizTalk Server can do. Steve Melan:
“We use BizTalk as often as possible. It’s become
our second most important software tool, after
VB.NET.”
Following a successful proof-of-concept for BizTalk
Server 2009 by partner Codit, the BCEE switched
over to BizTalk Server 2013 in 2014. Steve Melan:
“We performed the migration over a lunch break
after a week’s preparation. During this week we
temporarily stopped all migrations to the produc-
tion environment. The new version of BizTalk is ex-
tremely stable and reliable, and this is essential be-
cause we’ve centralised all message conversions. It’s
much easier to manage, but high availability is re-
quired too.”
“Even though BizTalk is based on the Microsoft
framework, developers who only know VB.NET will
need some basic BizTalk training,” explains Alain
Alain Mercier, Deputy Head of the IT Department BCEE: “With this volume of transactions, we’re one of the
biggest users of BizTalk in Luxembourg.”

4. Mercier. “Once this training is complete, working with Biz-
Talk is most similar to developing with VB.NET, so our de-
velopers accept the tool quite quickly.”
One million messages per day
More than one million messages per day are processed
and converted by Microsoft BizTalk Server across all appli-
cations. “With this volume of transactions, we’re one of
the biggest users of BizTalk in Luxembourg,” adds Steve
Melan.
As well as the conversion of SWIFT and SEPA messages,
BizTalk Server is also used for transporting and converting
data between various systems and databases such as IBM
MVS, IBM AIX, DB2 and Oracle. Alain Mercier: “Thanks to
BizTalk, we can avoid major migrations and continue to
use our existing systems. This again saves us valuable
time.”
BizTalk at BCEE: a success story
BizTalk has been a great success at BCEE, and for Steve
Melan who has received the award of MVP (Most Valuable
Professional) Microsoft Integration three times. Alain
Mercier: “As well as the fact that it’s an honour and a
pleasure to have an MVP in our IT team, it also gives us
lots of added value. This special MVP status gives us more
information about updates and new functions, plus direct
access to top Microsoft BizTalk experts if something goes
wrong.”
The success story is a collective one, with lots of infra-
structure and development teams contributing. Alain
Mercier: “If we look back today on what we’ve achieved,
we see that we’ve come a long way, and it’s definitely
been worth it. The robust BizTalk has been accepted by
our developers and resulted in valuable cost-savings.”
for more information
For more information about the Microsoft products
and services described, call +352 204 100 10 or
visit www.microsoft.lu/cases. There you will find
other companies that use similar applications.
For more information about the Banque et Caisse
d’Epargne de l’Etat, please visit www.bcee.lu
“The new version of BizTalk is extremely
stable and reliable, and this is essential be-
cause we’ve centralised all message con-
versions.”
Steve Melan