The solution is based upon the Open Payments Framework (OPF), a library of component building blocks built entirely on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA. SDD with SCT has been launched in its combined form with upcoming developments to augment the standards in mind, such as the European Banking Association (EBA) Priority Payments Scheme, and is as such a precursor to the larger strategic Sepa compliance objectives. The modularity of the solutions ensures banks the flexibility to pick and choose the functionality they need, whilst at the same time being sure that upcoming developments are catered for in a modular and strategic approach. This allows banks to deploy the combined solution as well as either SDD or SCT independently. Such powerful flexibility offers banks the ability to adopt Sepa at a pace that meets their requirements.
The combined solution covers all aspects of the direct debit lifecycle, with particular emphasis on vital business issues such as on-us and not on-us routing, timeline verifications, sophisticated mandate management, stop payments and the processing of so-called R-transactions (returns, refunds, reversals and rejections).
Compliance with credit transfers under Sepa is less complicated than the parallel direct debit scheme. In view of the developments to augment the standard SCT system, such as the EBA's Priority Payment Scheme, under which payments can be executed full circle within 4 hours, as opposed to 3 days, the SDD with SCT solution has been built to meet this type of requirement and with the core flexibility to embrace future unknown requirements.
The business benefits beyond SEPA compliance for banks will be highly dependent on strategic choices and implementation of Additional Optional Services under Rule Book 3. The two key elements that will be defined in detail at that stage, debtor mandate flow and irrevocable B2B direct debits are already supported in the SDD solution launched today.
Additionally, once the EU agrees the standards for e-invoicing, which is seen a major enabler of SDD benefits for and by the corporate environment, the SDD-SCT solution can be integrated with Clear2Pay's existing electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) solution. BillView Hub, as the solution is called, caters for integration of EBPP consolidation infrastructures, enabling the consolidation of interactions between originators, banks and debtors alike.
Mark Hartley, VP Strategy and Marketing at Clear2Pay comments: "We feel that combining SEPA Credit Transfers, one step up from basic SCT compliance, with SEPA Direct Debits offers greater returns. SDD and SCT contain many shared business services such as accounting, validations of BIC & IBAN, routing etc." He continues: "As a result unique SDD and SCT specific flows and services are kept to a minimum, hence a combined platform offers a higher ROI and lower total cost of ownership. Ultimately if banks choose to stay in the processing of payments, they will have to combine their payments infrastructure into a single, manageable and cost efficient platform. SEPA presents the opportunity to move to a single consolidated platform and the Open Payments Framework (with solutions like SDD with SCT) offers them the ability to both start and finish that journey."