Clear2Pay receives a government grant for its SEPA development strategy

Flemish Innovation Institute for Science and Technology (IWT) supports the development of the SEPA Direct Debit M-PEDD suite.

Brussels, 18 January 2007 – Clear2Pay, the international software vendor of next generation payment solutions for financial institutions, has been granted a subsidy for the development of the Multipurpose Pan-European Direct Debit (M-PEDD) project on the basis of its Open Payment Framework, a full Service Oriented Architecture environment.

The IWT supports technology innovation projects of companies on the basis of two elements: the scientific level and innovative character of the applied technology and the long term economic value for the development of the region. The M-PEDD development broadens the scope of the ‘classic’ B2C (business-to-consumer) application of SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) to B2B (business-to- business) and G2C (government-to-consumer). In addition Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) functionality will be added to the M-PEDD product.

Mark Hartley, VP Strategy and Marketing of Clear2Pay comments: “We are obviously delighted with this grant, in particular because the process of application required a very thorough review of both our technology strategy as well as our development and implementation capabilities and processes. The IWT recognises the innovative nature of the way we implement and embrace pure Service Oriented Architecture and the impact and importance of SEPA developments for the European banking sector. With this prototype we can offer our (prospective) clients a level of confidence about this new SEPA Direct Debit requirement, one of the first SEPA deliverables. Banks face huge upfront investment throughout the various SEPA stages. With our prototype we can demonstrate the benefits SDD can bring to banks ahead of the official implementation deadlines, in order to facilitate their own strategy and business case.”

The value of the grant is 130,000 euros. Clear2Pay has also recently been accepted as an Associate Member of the European Banking Association (EBA), an organisation at the heart of SEPA developments in the sense of knowledge exchange, promotion and co-operation.

About Clear2Pay

Clear2Pay is an innovative payments technology company focused on delivering globally applicable solutions for secure, timely and streamlined payments processing. Clear2Pay's Open Payment Framework (OPF) enables financial institutions to improve internal payments processing efficiencies whilst at the same time provide their clients with better payment services that are faster, with richer payments related information. Clear2Pay's solutions within the Open Payment Framework (SOA) offer financial institutions the ability to process payments through a centralised payments engine that utilises a library of re-useable business services across all payment types. The bank can thus combine new services models with existing infrastructures, thereby protecting previous investments whilst gradually moving to a more modern efficient payments environment. Clients include financial institutions such as ING, SEB Kort, VISA, MasterCard, ABN AMRO, Nordea, DnB NOR, Abbey National, Fortis Bank, NAB, Krung Thai Bank, ANZ and Commonwealth Bank. Clear2Pay operates out of Belgium (HQ), the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, China, Australia and Singapore and currently employs over 220 staff.
More information is available on www.clear2pay.com.


For more information:

Clear2Pay NV/SA
Conny Dorrestijn - VP Marketing and Communications
E:
P: +32 15 79 52 00
M: +31 651 067201