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 Payments 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.

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 three main products of SEPA, the Single Euro Payments 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 the European countries. These transactions are currently still processed using national systems such as Direct Debit (United Kingdom), Lastschrift (Germany) and Incasso (the Netherlands).