The Russian and Bulgarian arms of the Austrian private banking group Raiffeisen Bank International have implemented the FinTRACE system provided by Swissrisk Financial Systems for the automated management and processing of international payment inquiries.

The new system provides an electronic case management process which supports SWIFT messaging, along with emails and faxes. The implementation also means the banks are compliant with “SWIFTNet Exceptions and Investigations”, a new initiative which sets international standards for payment investigations.

"Thanks to FinTRACE our Russian bank will now enter a new era of exceptions and investigation processing. We expect a significant gain of process efficiency and client services which has already been proven by other network banks which are already using FinTRACE in live production," said Günther Gall, head of Raiffeisen Bank International’s division for transaction services.

While both banks are now only using FinTrace for handling international payment inquiries, domestic capabilities will be added at a later stage, the firm said in a statement.