The achievement of full compliance with Step2 is of paramount important in relation to the imminent launch of the Sepa Direct Debit scheme in November 2009. PBS is one of the largest payment processors outside the Euro area and has to date signed up 120 clients for the SDD processing service. The service, fuelled by Clear2Pay's Open Payment Framework technology, is one of the first of to be fully compliant with Step2.
Mr. Per Terp, Director of Payments at PBS comments: " Step2 compliance is significant because it demonstrates the unique viability of an outsourced approach to Sepa. Just being compliant alone is a major investment for a financial institution and does not offer a business case for clients in itself. Our entire service offer focuses on offering value added services on top of payments processing. We can offer just that because we are a niche player who can afford to dedicate resources to both ends of the spectrum compliance and a meaningful and rich services offering."
Mark Hartley, VP Global Strategy and CMO and Clear2Pay states: "As the Sepa Direct Debit launch date approaches our discussions with clients increasingly focus on the operational effort and cost of being Sepa compliant. Many challenges in the area of the mandate management, supervision of transactions, tracing, cash and risk management have to be met and this is not an undertaking every bank is able or willing to undertake. PBS is a great partner because they understand the issues involved for banks and corporates in- and outside the Eurozone. Our platform has fulfilled its promise in that the Step2 compliance tests were executed in a short time frame without fault."