Bank of Montreal (BMO) is migrating M&I Bank’s trade business to its own trade services platform, CGI-hosted Trade360.

M&I Bank were taken over by BMO in late 2010 for US$4.1mn

The bank is also working together with CGI to allow BMO customers to upload purchase orders and invoices.

Sara Joyce, BMO’s head of international financial institutions and trade finance says that in the past, the belief was that back-office host-to-host connectivity would be the way forward.

But in the last few years it has become clear that many customers do not want to incur an IT project and want the more straightforward upload capabilities.

In addition, both Key Bank and Whitney Bank have agreed to use BMO’s platform on an outsource basis. The latest recruit, M&I Bank, is expected to be live in early 2012, BMO says.