Financial institutions Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, ING, Deutsche Postbank, Standard Bank, Zürcher Kantonalbank have teamed up with software firms, Microsoft, SAP, SunGard, Temenos and Callataÿ & Wouters, and service providers, Axon, Finanz IT, ifb group, Steria, Swift, and Syskoplan, in a new association to help banks establish a service oriented architecture for their business operations.

Based on the foundation of the Industry Value Network for Banks created by SAP, the Banking Industry Architecture Network's aim is to help banks ease the transition to an SOA environment by gathering together a community of technology players and global banks that will openly share domain and technical expertise to apply SOA principles and methodologies. BIAN has an open intellectual property policy, which helps ensure that the specifications that emerge from this collaboration can be implemented on a variety of technology platforms.