Deutsche Bank has unveiled a four-pillar strategy to handle all payments with Sepa criteria in the same way as legacy domestic mass payments, irrespective of format, value and access channel. It will also provide message transformation, a new account model, and support for transaction initiation and reconciliation processes for its corporate clients.
The bank says that by effectively treating all payments, regardless of amount, as domestic transactions it is going far beyond the requirements of the current EU Regulated Payment pricing model applicable to payments below a threshold of EUR50,000.
It will insulate clients in their migration to Sepa through the enhancement of internationally popular payment formats such as IDOC, CSV and Edifact. This means its clients won't have to immediately change their payment processes and infrastructure to provide and deliver the official Sepa message format - XML. Deutsche Bank says it will also support Sepa XML messages for use outside of the Sepa countries, so its clients can use one format globally.
The bank will also introduce a flexible account model, in which existing client accounts in all Deutsche Bank branches within the euro zone and UK can be used to process all transactions, including Sepa compliant transfers. Deutsche Bank says it is the first global transaction bank to announce such a service.
Finally, Deutsche Bank has developed a number of new product features aimed at helping clients with their transaction initiation and reconciliation processes. Examples include the re-conversion of Iban/BICs into national account numbers and the completion of certain payment orders where Bank Identifier Codes (BICs) are not included in an original payment instruction.
Commenting on the bank's approach, Werner Steinmueller, head of global transaction banking comments: "Our strategy is to make the long term opportunities of Sepa an immediate reality for clients who benefit from lower transaction costs and the smoothest possible migration."