Swift and LogicaCMG have decided to join forces in their testing programmes for the Single Euro Payments Area (Sepa) rather than run two competing initiatives.
LogicaCMG had set up a payments version of its TestFrame methodology which it launched at the 2006 Sibos event, while Swift subsequently launched its own Sepa Testing Programme.
Under the new agreement, the two partners hope to offer clients a single approach to Sepa compliance. While Swift will aim to ensure banks' systems conform to the European Payments Council's rulebook, LogicaCMG will address the wider issue of testing the entire payment process across multiple currencies.
"The two initiatives set off separately but we soon realised there was an overlap," said Lode Snykers, managing director of global financial services at LogicaCMG. "We approached each other in the end."
Snykers says the collaboration was driven by the demands of clients who did not want to duplicate their compliance efforts. Adds Swift CEO Lazaro Campos: "The industry will be best served, in terms of cost and risk reduction, by a single Sepa reference testing platform."
The first Sepa deadline is 1 January 2008, by which time banks must be able to send and receive Sepa-compliant credit transfers. The deadline for the introduction of Sepa direct debits follows a year later. Asked whether he expected all of his clients to be ready January 2008, Snykers said: "We are doing everything we can to make that happen."