ProgressSoft

Use case

Business Continuity, Regulatory Compliance, Risk Management

Industry

Financial Services and Payments

Services

Software Escrow 
Verification Services

Background

ProgressSoft is a global provider of financial and payment solutions, supporting more than 380 central banks, national banks, and payment service providers for nearly four decades. Its software forms the backbone of 22 central payments infrastructure across multiple markets, including interoperable instant payments, clearing systems, digital cheque processing, and beyond. 

Operating at the core of financial ecosystems, ProgressSoft’s solutions are deployed in environments where availability, long term maintainability, and regulatory alignment are essential. Central banks and financial regulators across the region continue to raise expectations around operational resilience, continuity planning for systems that support national and cross border financial operations.

To support its customers in meeting these expectations, ProgressSoft has taken a proactive approach to software continuity and long term operational readiness.

Challenge

Financial institutions operate in one of the most highly regulated and mission critical environments globally. Regulators increasingly require institutions to demonstrate that critical software can be maintained, rebuilt, or transitioned in the event of supplier disruption.

For the industry, this creates a clear dependency risk: if access to source code, technical documentation, or system knowledge were lost, the impact could extend beyond individual institutions to national payments infrastructure.

ProgressSoft recognised that customers needed more than contractual commitments. They required a practical, repeatable framework that would:

• Support regulatory expectations around continuity and resilience.
• Validate that deposited software materials were complete and usable.
• Reduce operational risk for institutions running mission critical system.
• Reinforce confidence in the long term viability of ProgressSoft’s technology.

To meet these needs at scale, ProgressSoft sought a specialist partner with deep technical capability and proven experience supporting software continuity requirements across the 26 countries it serves. 

“Continuity of national payment infrastructure is not a feature; it is our responsibility. Operational resilience is engineered into our solutions from the ground up, and introducing an independent software escrow layer strengthens that promise. Escode proved to be the right partner to support it.”

– Rami Tannous, Chief Operations Officer, ProgressSoft

Solution

ProgressSoft partnered with Escode, the global leader in software escrow to deliver a software escrow and verification for its customers.

Escode has worked with ProgressSoft since 2006 and has supported hundreds of joint customers over nearly two decades. The partnership enables ProgressSoft customers to implement escrow arrangements aligned with both regulatory expectations and real world operational requirements.

Under the framework, ProgressSoft deposits source code and associated technical materials into Escode’s secure escrow vault for the benefit of its customers. These materials typically include:

• Source code
• Build and deployment instructions
• Technical documentation
• Configuration and environment details

The software escrow agreements provide customers with added assurance, ensuring secure and legally protected access to critical materials.

To move beyond storage alone, Escode performs independent verification of deposited materials. This process validates whether the software deposits are complete, usable, and capable of supporting system recovery or ongoing operation by a third party.

Verification assesses:

• Completeness and accuracy of deposited material.
• Ability to build, deploy, or operate the software using the deposit.
• Quality and clarity of documentation and instructions.
• Consistency between deposited assets and the live system.

This structured approach provides customers and regulators with clear evidence that continuity arrangements are practical and effective, not just contractual.

This collaboration demonstrates how software providers and specialist continuity partners can work together to raise standards across the financial ecosystem — ensuring critical systems remain maintainable, recoverable, and aligned with regulatory expectations.