Today financial institutions, corporations as well as consumers face the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) reality. Testing compliance to the new payment directive ensures quality, reliability and cost-efficiency although surprisingly, this is often an underrated and forgotten element.

The transition period kicked off in earnest earlier this year with the launch of SEPA Credit Transfers - during which the SEPA schemes and the national schemes will co-exist ensuring continuity and interoperability. The next priority for Europe is to comply with SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) by 2009 with the ultimate aim to endorse a unified payment scheme by the end of 2010. Obviously, a fast and absolute migration is a critical task and in the interest of all players involved: a longer co-existence of national and SEPA payment schemes will incur unnecessary costs.

Testing SEPA technology: a strategic decision

Efficient automated verification and acceptance of electronic processes relieves companies and improves their time-to-market and quality levels. This enables them to gain a considerable amount of money getting it right first time. Also, industry experiences and surveys illustrate that even short periods of system failure easily lead to a significant amount of lost transactions and millions of Euros loss of revenue. Knowing that the cost of SEPA testing represents only 3 to 5% of the total project cost, should make it an uncomplicated decision. Most financial organisations, however, lack the knowledge and capabilities to asses the complexity of testing transactional systems. Evidently, this is not their core business whilst Integri builds upon more than 15 years of experience having invested in a specialised range of tools and services.

The Direct Debit challenge

Many organisations deal with the SCT migration in-house as it requires a relatively minor update of existing transactional infrastructures. Nonetheless, even whilst most banks claim to be compliant, a genuine need for accurate testing of formats and conformity remains. Integri's Credit Transfer test tool addresses all needs and is available off-the-shelf. As predicted, the SEPA Direct Debit scheme necessitates an even more detailed and in-depth testing effort addressing the extreme complexity of the requirements that involve an extensive reshape of companies’ payment infrastructures and legacy applications.

Free your hands: the benefits of outsourcing

In today’s changing and increasingly complex payment environment, quality is critical: system failure immediately impacts service levels and can incur serious business damage. Even more, a reshape of the payment landscape might be a moment for the customer to shop around and compare banks. Hence, quality, good Service Level Agreements and a short time-to market become more important than ever.

Leaving the setup of the test environment in the hands of an experienced team such as Integri will enlighten and fasten the complex transition path of financial organisations and turns SEPA migration for the end-user into a ‘non-event’.

Visit our SEPA pages.

Jan De Meester
General Manager