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CGI is giving its budding software business a boost in the form of a new partnership with Microsoft’s cloud unit.

Canada-headquartered CGI is one of the world’s largest IT consultancies. Over the past few years, the firm has expanded its solutions portfolio with a number of ready-to-use software products in a bid to enhance its profitability.

Software has far higher margins than the consulting services that are CGI’s bread and butter. Plus, companies that buy CGI software often hire the firm’s consultants to implement it, which means more services revenue for the firm.

The focus of the firm’s partnership with Microsoft is a product called CGI All Payments. It’s used by banks to provide instant payment processing for customers.

In its brochure for the offering, CGI points out that it helped build the SWIFT payment processing system at the heart of international commerce. The firm has also built financial software for many financial institutions in North America.

As part of its alliance with Microsoft, CGI has made CGI All Payments available through the tech giant’s Azure Marketplace service. This is a kind of app store through which banks can buy software for use in their Azure cloud environments.

In certain respects, buying through Azure Marketplace is simpler than using traditional sales channels. This simplicity should streamline CGI’s go-to-market motion when pitching to banks that use Microsoft’s public cloud and thereby makes its salespeople more effective.

Among the key features of CGI All Payments is that it can be implemented in a few months, which is quite short for a complex financial application, and the fact it offers an extensive collection of APIs. Those APIs allow banks to automate payment processing activities that in the past would have to be done manually by employees. 

“CGI All Payments is designed to enable faster processing, lower costs and deliver greater transparency for our clients,” commented Robert Coakley, the executive in charge of CGI’s payment software business. “With access now available through the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, clients have an additional channel to easily and quickly procure and scale the modern, innovative services CGI All Payments delivers.”

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