By enabling banks and corporate organisations to provide the correct BIC and IBAN data when initiating cross-border payments in euros, BANK WIZARD helps reduce the cost of cross-border transactions and facilitates compliance with recent regulatory initiatives.

As part of the move towards a Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), the European Payments Council (EPC) passed a resolution in June 2005 mandating the use of BICs and IBANs in all cross-border credit transfers in euros[3] . Corporate customers whose cross-border euro transactions do not contain valid BIC and IBAN data may be subject to repair charges. In addition, from 1st January 2007 banks will be able to reject such transactions and charge customers for the return of the transaction.

"By further developing BANK WIZARD to incorporate BIC and IBAN data, we are demonstrating our commitment to the global payments market and our anticipation of payments trends within Europe", explains Jonathan Williams, Principal Market Strategist at Eiger Systems. "BANK WIZARD is the only fully automated data validation solution that already fulfils the requirements of SEPA and is sufficiently flexible to be integrated with any existing payments platform regardless of application or programming language. Recognition of this can be seen in the growing global demand for BANK WIZARD as well as from within Europe."

Organisations can achieve BIC and IBAN compliance by implementing the BANK WIZARD cross-border module. This is an additional option for BANK WIZARD version 3 that provides international payment routing information as well as undertaking domestic bank account validation and is also enhanced with additional country specific data.

The BANK WIZARD cross-border module covers the 25 Member States of the EU plus the four countries that comprise the EFTA: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Further country modules are planned for later in 2006. Country extensions may be used as standalone modules or integrated with other country modules to provide users with optimum flexibility in the support of multiple domestic and cross-border payment systems.

The BIC and IBAN rules have the potential to impact all organisations making European cross-border payments.

"With the deadline of 1st January 2007 only months away, organisations should evaluate their systems and solution suppliers without delay", advises Jonathan Williams.