The Symphony Software Foundation is Open for Business

PALO ALTO, CA and NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - October 18, 2016) - Symphony Software Foundation (the Foundation), the nonprofit organization fostering open innovation around the Symphony secure productivity platform, today announced the upcoming availability of an Open Developer Platform access to Symphony.

The Foundation hosts open source development of the Symphony platform, bots, apps and integrations on the Symphony Platform and open source technologies common to the financial services industry. With the Open Developer Platform, the Foundation will provide community contributors and Foundation member organizations with open development access to the Symphony API, as well as best-of-breed development tools and lifecycle, to promote a seamless developer experience.

"Open source fueled the cloud and big data revolutions. As a result, financial institutions and fintech firms are now increasingly considering this approach to drive faster innovation, pervasive adoption and superior integration capabilities, while lowering development cost," said Gabriele Columbro, Executive Director, Symphony Software Foundation. "It's no longer about choosing between proprietary or open source. It's about selecting the best open source platform and to engage your community. While the financial services industry is behind the open source adoption curve, the digital revolution continues to pull financial institutions into the next century. This, along with the rise of fintech and regtech, is driving the need for innovation and interoperability. And that is where the Foundation plays a key role for industries in the Symphony ecosystem."

"A key goal of the Foundation is to foster a strong ecosystem on the Symphony platform, and we believe that a developer-first, open API approach is a fundamental enabler of a strong community. We have seen major momentum in the number of contributions from the community, and this platform will attract more high quality contributions from large firms as well as smaller fintech players," said Peter Monks, VP Technology, Symphony Software Foundation. "As we work with Symphony towards the contribution of their core platform, we believe the Open Developer Platform is a key step for Symphony to power standardization in the financial services industry," he said.

"This offering substantially lowers the barrier for financial institutions to collaborate on the Symphony platform under the Foundation's governance," said Suresh Kumar, CIO of BNY Mellon, a Platinum Member of the Foundation and member of the Open Developer program. "We very much welcome this offering which strongly re-affirms how open and interoperable APIs are the key drivers for innovation in fintech."

"Open source is a catalyst for the next exciting wave of financial technology. The Open Developer Platform enables a boundless community of technologists to innovate together. It accelerates our ability to deploy advanced workflow and data applications, and makes it easier for us to overcome the last mile challenges when we seek to integrate with others to create new functionality and value for the industry," said Brad Levy, CEO MarkitSERV and Global Head of Loans at IHS Markit, and a Gold Member of the Foundation.

"As Symphony builds the platform that powers work, our community collaborates on innovation represented by our application ecosystem," said David Gurle, CEO, Symphony Communications, LLC. "The Symphony Software Foundation fosters open source components of Symphony, through its partners and customers. Openness and community ultimately powers the growing momentum of our ecosystem."

The Foundation team will be showcasing the platform and recent contributions at the upcoming FinDEVr Silicon Valley. Peter Monks, VP Technology at the Foundation, will discuss 'Open: the cornerstone of true collaboration' on October 18 at 1:40 p.m. at the Garage.

About Symphony Software Foundation

The Symphony Software Foundation is an independent non­profit organization formed to sustain the open governance, open source development and adoption of Symphony as the industry­standard secure messaging platform. Symphony makes it easier and safer for organizations in regulated industries to communicate and collaborate behind and across the firewall, while maintaining full compliance.

The Symphony Software Foundation hosts an ecosystem of open source projects, enabling open collaboration in financial services on the Symphony Platform.

To access the Open Developer Platform, visit our Wiki page

Projects are Apache 2.0 licensed and available on GitHub at https://github.com/symphonyoss/

To learn more, visit: http://symphony.foundation

To become a member: http://symphony.foundation/#become-a-member

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