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Ares announces investments in Singapore's BLITZ for finance solution in South East Asia


The board of directors of Ares International Corp. recently passed a plan to invest in BLITZ IT Consultants Private Limited, a Singapore-based company that acts as an agent for financing, Internet and information security solutions.

BLITZ became the Service Partner of SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) in Vietnam in 2004 and became the Business Partner of SWIFT in January 2008. BLITZ has been cultivating in South East Asia for years. The company provides SWIFT-related services for banks in Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Ares indicated the investment is in line with the future investment strategy of Ares in South East Asia. Up until this year, Ares has provided implementation of SWIFT for the Vietnamese branches of Cathay United Bank and Taipei Fubon Bank, both Taiwanese companies. The initial investment policy of Ares is to focus on Taiwanese companies in China as well as on the manufacturing industry. On the other hand, the investment on BLITZ will focus firstly on the finance industry via the channels of BLITZ, so that the related products and services of Ares in the financial sector, including SWIFT professional consultancy service, eAresBank for overseas branches of banks (international financing system Web version), AFEIS (Advanced Foreign Exchange Information System) and PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) for information security, can be promoted in Vietnam and the South East Asia region. In the future, Ares is not ruling out including e-government in its service in the regions.

According to Ares, Singapore has South East Asia as its market and has a strong international perspective. Therefore, the first investment of Ares in the foreign company can help accelerate the internationalization of Ares as well as the global promotion of its products and services.

BLITZ was established in 1998 and has three branches in Singapore and Vietnam (including Singapore, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City). The company mainly acts as an agent for the finance services of SWIFT, Internet-related business for partners including VeriSign, Watch Guard, exinda, O2 Micro, Redware, Customer Coverage, as well as the information security solution of Solution Labs (Singapore).

A Service & Business Partner of SWIFT in Taiwan, Ares has helped in implementing SWIFT system for years. Its related technical staff are all experienced: not only are they equipped with years of implementation experiences, they also need to pass related certification exams. Ares obtained SWIFT Service Partner certification in January 2003 and offers professional consultancy service for Taiwan’s financial institutions, with the service including SWIFT installation and implementation, centralized planning and implementation of overseas branches as well as homogenous and heterogeneous supporting plans. With its abundant SWIFT-related experiences and professional knowledge, Ares has developed solutions such as SWIFT Messages integration, fund automation and global capital account instant search.

Ares has assisted more than 80% of Taiwan-based banks in implementing, maintaining and updating SWIFT-related infrastructure and is now aggressively promoting various SWIFT solutions. With the high-quality, highly secure network and service of SWIFTNet , Ares expects to help Taiwan-based financial institutions and enterprises to improve their operation efficiency and capital allocation.