LONDON, December 20, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- GEO, Travelex's next generation payments solution, has been crowned "Innovation of the Year" by Financial-i, it was announced today.

Launched at SIBOS 2010, GEO confirmed Travelex's position as the clear industry leader in global business payments and beat the major global banks and top-tier software providers to receive Financial-i's top industry award.

Travelex's GEO was awarded top honours for its depth and breadth of functionality, ease of implementation and interface, interoperability, cost savings and how the solution helps firms address business issues.

GEO, released initially for Financial Institutions, offers a scalable, secure and flexible platform that simplifies global payments and increases profitability by enabling the customers of these Financial Institutions unique access to Travelex's powerful global payments network.

David Sear, Managing Director, Travelex Global Business Payments commented, "GEO marks a significant shift in the transfers sector toward intelligent routing of cross border payments for significantly lower cost and improved transparency on payments across and within currencies. We are delighted to have been awarded the top honour in global transaction banking by Financial-i.

"GEO offers a uniquely global and easily accessed infrastructure, facilitating new revenue streams and dramatically improving service levels for organisations generally and Financial Institutions' customers more specifically."

Anita Hawser, Editor of Financial-I, commented, "Competition was fierce across a number of categories this year as banks and financial software vendors invested more heavily in innovations designed to make the user experience more personalised - GEO stood out in this regard."