Equens has signed a collaboration agreement with Seceti, which it says allows "both payment processors to offer European banks an alternative for clearing their payments throughout Europe".

Says Michael Steinbach, chairman of Equens' board of directors: "According to our strategy we will offer a variety of clearing possibilities via e.g. an Equens clearing community, collaboration with partners and other ways to ensure reachabilty and interoperability."

"The collaboration offers an alternative, extremely competitive, for clearing services in Europe," adds Giuseppe Capponcelli, GM of Seceti.

Equens was created last year by the merger of Dutch payments body Interpay and Germany's Transaktionsinstitut and was established in response to Sepa, which aims to dismantle cross-border barriers and reduce costs for non-cash euro payments.

Last month the pan-European processor reported a deal to provide outsourced payments transaction services to Finland's OP Bank Group. Equens said OP Bank was the first Finnish bank to outsource payment processing to a foreign service provider.