London, UK - 24 May 2004, 11:30 GMT - mi2g is delighted to announce the appointment of Willy Hersberger as Senior Consultant with specific responsibility for developing alternative risk transfer solutions within insurance and reinsurance markets in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany and Austria. Mr Hersberger will also be advising mi2g on the positioning of its D2-Banking platform, risk visualisation solutions and bespoke security architecture within the Swiss private banking arena.

Willy Hersberger is a Swiss national and a graduate in business administration from St Gallen University in Switzerland. He has over three decades of experience in senior management positions within Europe and America in underwriting and marketing at Swiss Re, one of the world's largest reinsurers.

"I look forward to bringing in my experience with financial markets around the world, in particular, my experience with Fortune 500 companies in respect of their risk financing," said Willy Hersberger. "In specific, I believe I have a lot of understanding for our clients' security and risk management needs."

Willy Hersberger was born in Switzerland in 1947 and graduated in business administration from St Gallen University in 1971. During his 30 years' career at Swiss Re, he held various management positions in underwriting including aviation and engineering risks and in marketing including Western, Central and Eastern Europe; the Middle East; Indian Subcontinent; and Latin America.

"Willy Hersberger's appointment at mi2g comes at an important moment for us as we address D2-Banking opportunities in private banking within Switzerland as well as complex risk visualisation issues that arise from modelling financial markets, man-made and natural catastrophic events for the insurance and reinsurance industry," said Geoffrey Hancock, Director and Company secretary, mi2g.

From 1996 to 1999 Willy Hersberger served on the executive committee of Swiss Re New Markets, in charge of serving Swiss Re's large corporate clients. From 1999 to 2001 he was as a member of Swiss Re America's executive committee responsible for underwriting and marketing of Swiss Re Group in the United States. He left Swiss Re in 2002 and now serves as a non-executive director on the boards of various captive insurance companies.

"The mi2g team welcomes Willy Hersberger. His experience in handling risk transfer issues and the critical impact of engineering systems within complex environments is particularly valuable to us from the global risks perspective," said DK Matai, Executive Chairman, mi2g.

Background

In a nutshell, mi2g is at the leading edge of building secure on-line trading, broking and banking architectures. The principal applications of our technology are:

1. D2-Banking;
2. Digital Risk Management; and
3. Bespoke Security Architecture.

mi2g pioneers enterprise-wide security practices and technology to save time and cut cost. We enhance comparative advantage within financial services and government agencies. Our real time intelligence is deployed worldwide for contingency capability, executive decision making and strategic threat assessment.

The last year has been one of the most significant in the eight-year history of mi2g. We have focussed on the underlying research and development of the enabling technology, which facilitates D2-Banking. We have also looked at the regulatory environment that allows trans-national movement of intellectual property and private data whilst recognising the privacy and rights of the individual alongside the sovereignty of the nation state. In this regard, both Switzerland and Singapore have the appropriate framework in place to allow D2-Banking services to be offered.

The first phase of the D2-Banking initiative was completed on 17th December 2003, the same day as the first centenary of the Wright Brothers' powered flight from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina which heralded a new age in convenience, speed and efficiency in global travel and business. This was the day that mi2g put forward its vision for the future in very bold and clear terms: "Before the end of this decade every individual around the world will have the convenience and guaranteed security of one stop D2-Banking, which will become second nature to its customers as they enjoy the ability to store and access data and finances from anywhere at anytime without fear of being hacked or plagued by malicious software."

D2-Banking includes the custody of genomic maps and medical records; art, photo, music and video collections; personal files including wills, deeds and memoirs; and other intellectual property alongside traditional financial services. D2-Banking has evolved over the last eight years to create the next generation of electronic banking which utilises mi2g's award winning Bespoke Security Architecture pedigree to deliver combined digital banking and data vaulting services with guaranteed security.

mi2g's Bespoke Security Architecture was conferred the Queen's Award for enterprise in the category of innovation in 2003. The focus of the business remains Security Intelligence Products and Systems (SIPS), Contingency Capability Radar (CCR), the Digital Risk Matrix (DRM) and the electronic Data Fort Initiative (eDFi), which is the underlying platform for D2-Banking. By integrating state of the art software engineering technology with high performance computing capability, mi2g continues to revolutionise the world of Digital Risk Management. We continue to have the world's largest hacker database within SIPS (Security Intelligence Products and Systems). The competitive advantage garnered through the world class SIPS database was consolidated further with several references to mi2g in worldwide citations on security matters.

We have embarked on further research and development within our SIPS range of products in 2004. Considerable capital is being allocated to the Economic Valuation Engine for Share Analysis (EVESA), which we are pioneering to balance large equity and derivatives based portfolios deployed within wealth management and financial services. In order to ensure that our investment-balancing model is exercised, scaled down simulations are being undertaken both within the London and New York capital markets to validate the algorithm.

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Full details of the April 2004 report are available as of 1st May 2004 and can be ordered from here. (To view contents sample please click here).