HKT announces a significant contract win to deliver financial network infrastructure for HKICL

Aug. 8, 2012 - PRLog -- HKT (SEHK:6823) – HONG KONG, August 8, 2012 – HKT, Hong Kong’s premier telecommunications service provider, has been awarded a contract to design and build a fully resilient backbone infrastructure and to provide network services for Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Limited’s (HKICL) ICLNet and its participating financial institutions.  

HKICL currently handles the exchange of clearing data and cheque images with its clearing members via a third party network. The new ICLNet, which will replace the network from March 2013, features full resilience, the highest reliability and superb scalability. These infrastructure and bandwidth enhancements leapfrog the new ICLNet’s capabilities to include industry-wide implementation of electronic transmission of cheque images, eliminating manual transportation of computer tapes. The new network also delivers unparalleled performance for electronic data exchange among 150 financial institutions in Hong Kong, allowing online commercial credit assessment of SMEs and electronic exchange of interbank clearing and settlement files.

HKT has designed and commissioned a 10Gbps mission critical backbone, a 10-fold increase in capacity, to facilitate processing of cheque images and the enhanced applications. HKT will also provide truly end-to-end support and up to 100Mbps fiber connectivity to ICLNet participants, boosting the maximum connectivity speed to participants by five times.

Mr. Tom Chan, HKT’s Managing Director of Commercial Group, said, “HKT has long been a well recognized leader and a pioneering telecommunications service provider that supports mission critical networks for the financial community including SDNet/2 and SWIFTNet. This additional contract further demonstrates our strength and commitment in supporting Hong Kong as an international financial center.”