The fast-approaching deadlines for Sepa compliance means
the payments businesses of banks in Europe, and the clearing
and settlements infrastructure at large, all face extensive
economic implications.
Clearers and all other banks, as well as corporate treasury departments
have to make far-reaching decisions about their business strategy
and IT infrastructure.
The Sepa initiative itself potentially burdens banks with considerable
costs of implementation and may expose them to significant
risks during the transition. Conversely, the opportunity
to achieve real competitive advantage is available to those
who make the best technology and management decisions, who
implement effectively and who offer their customers the
best service as a result. This has led to the corporate
customers also reviewing their options with this renewed
focus, prompting a cultural shift from a passive acceptance
of existing solutions to an active demand for value added
services and cost effective propostions. Consequently, there
are new models for the management of corporate-bank relationships
opening up.
This looming challenge or opportunity combines with the need for
banks and their corporate customers to upgrade automated payment
systems - both ATMs and POS terminals - and for systems generally
to be enhanced. But thanks to improvements in banking infrastructure
there is now the opportunity to improve performance and information
management within all aspects of corporate-to-bank and bank-to-corporate
payments and settlement.
There are also issues arising from changes to the SWIFT regime
that offer banks and corporates significant opportunities to reduce
costs and improve management of the payments process.
All these drivers coalesce around two key priorities: Faster Payments
and Real-Time Payments Management.
In both cases there is an urgent need to enhance the payments system
infrastructure to support compliance, reduce costs, improve
business intelligence and ensure complex technical and process
changes are effectively implemented without disruption to
ongoing payment and settlement activities.
NEXT STEPS
Clearers
can explore the options for faster payments and Sepa implementation
supported by Oracle i-flex and Vocalink technology.
Corporates
can make better decisions about rationalising multi-bank
relationships, ensuring effective POS replacement, and
leveraging new SWIFT Connectivity solutions.
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