Equens offers banks an economical solution to become SDD compliant

Utrecht, 25 June 2009.

As one of Europe's largest payement processors, Equens is ready for the introduction of the SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) on 1 November 2009.
Equens is offering banks an economical, state-of-the-art internet solution with a short time and minimal effort for implementation.
With Equens' solution, banks will be able to receive SDDs and fully comply with the SDD regulations and implementation guidelines drawn up by the European Payement Council (EPC).

In contrast to the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) launched in January 2008, the regulations banks are required to follow when processing SDDs are complex. Moreover, the initial volume of SDDs is expected to be limited. Due to the current investment climate for banks, the low volumes, and the fact the banks do not need to be fully ready to receive SDDs until 1 November 2010, Equens' solution is especially appealing. Banks can log in to the new internet solution via Equens' secure web portal to process their SDDs in an easy and user-friendly manner.

In practice:
Any bank can utilise the internet solution, or 'Debtor Bank Module'. When SDDs are submitted, participating banks being debited receive a notification from Equens and determine online how these transactions should be processed. A video un the operation of the Debtor Bank module can be viewed at www.equens.com/sdd.

Equens will, based on this internet solution, also offer a module that will enable to also send SDDs (Creditor Bank Module).
SEPA Direct Debit is one of the main products of SEPA, the Single Euro Payements Area, launched on 28 January 2008 with the implementation of the SEPA Credit Transfer and already earlier with the SEPA Cards Framework.
SDD provides a common standard for direct debit transactions in processed using national systems such as Direct Debit (United Kingdom), Lastschrift (Germany) and Incasso (the Netherlands).