Softbank Investment Leads to Cognotec Expansion in Asia LONDON, Feb. 28 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ -- Cognotec, the leading provider of e-commerce trading solutions, is expanding its presence in Asia with a number of key appointments and the establishment of a new office in Singapore. Cognotec is already well-established in the region. Leading Internet company Softbank has recently extended its investment in Cognotec by $20 million, increasing its share of the company to 17%. Softbank Corp is also Cognotec's partner in FOREXBANK, a joint venture launched in 1999. FOREXBANK is a local partner which enables Japanese and Korean banks, and other financial institutions, to offer their own branded Internet trading service to their clients. New appointees to Cognotec's team will work on local sales and implementations of Cognotec's ground-breaking Internet-based trading service AutoDeal LITE. They will also liaise between Cognotec and FOREXBANK. * Timothy Neo heads-up the new Singapore office, as Cognotec's Managing Director, Asia Sub Region and is focused on managing relationships with the local banking community. Tim was most recently Sales Manager, New Business for Reuters where he spent 12 years. * Denis Sweeney has also joined Cognotec and is responsible for Operations and Technology. He has 7 years experience in client support and project management in Japan. In his new role, Denis is responsible for implementations in Asia and is based in Tokyo, Japan. * Patrick Dunne who was formerly a Project Manager for the deployment of foreign exchange systems in Japan, also takes responsibility for Operations and Technology for Cognotec in Asia and is based in Tokyo. * Vi-na Yu joins Cognotec in Singapore as an Account Manager. She was previously Account Manager with ECS Computers, Asia. Vi-na is responsible for both sales to new accounts, and for support to AutoDeal LITE customers after they have switched the service on. Commenting on the new appointments, David Jones, Cognotec's Managing Director for the Asian region said: "The quality of our new appointees demonstrates Cognotec's commitment to both covering the Asian market from a sales perspective, deploying the AutoDeal LITE service with maximum efficiency, and provision of the highest levels of support post deployment. SOURCE Cognotec CONTACT: John Norris of Moonlight Media, +44-171-250-4770, or fax,+44-171-250-4770, or [email protected], or [email protected] Web site: http://www.cognotec.com