SEPA

SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) was introduced in order to uniform the fragmented European payments market since countries had their own payments products, legislation and standards, which together limited competition and efficiency. With SEPA EPBF proposes two new products:

• SEPA Credit Transfer
• SEPA Direct Debit

However SEPA is not just about changing the way payments are processed, it is an opportunity to address many of the challenges enterprises are experiencing today like managing risk, optimizing liquidity and increasing the efficiency of the financial supply chain.

The main benefits from SEPA will be derived by companies who are taking on an integrated approach to the financial supply chain. By closely aligning your order-to-cash and purchase-to-pay processes, less working capital will be required. This will result into more cash available in order to fund your strategic activities and a lower borrowing need.

In a nutshell, SEPA enables you to rationalize euro bank accounts, reduce costs, ease reconciliation, optimize liquidity and enable risks to be identified and managed more effectively.

Increasing the efficiency of the financial supply chain

SEPA offers a coherent set of message formats (XML ISO 20022) which can form the basis of communication throughout the financial cycle. This will enable companies to integrate their processes without loss of information or control. By using this standardized format companies can eliminate local formats which facilitates centralized A/P and A/R handling.

Moreover SEPA offers a number of features that directly lead to a more efficient supply chain.
For example:

• Reduction of payment and collection processing times
• Exchange of information in a reliable and consistent way: remittance and originator data with a unique reference are transmitted end-to-end, which facilitates reconciliation
• The original amount will be transferred without deduction of transaction charges which facilitates reconciliation
• Automated exception handling leads to less manual intervention

Managing risk

SEPA offers companies the opportunity to manage their risk more effectively in a variety of ways:

• Operational risk: Fragmented payables and receivables across different locations results in a loss of visibility, inconsistent processes and sub-optimal use of technology. Banking communications need to be replicated across locations, so control over user access and security rights becomes more difficult. SEPA offers uniform and standardized payments and collections across Europe. This enables companies to better manage their operational risk.
• Liquidity risk: creating a consolidated cash position and manage your liquidity effectively is a challenge that all companies face. SEPA helps you to optimize your cash position, reduce liquidity risk and leverage cash surpluses to reduce borrowing requirements.

For more specific information on our solutions please contact your Sales Representative.