The launch of PAYS follows the successful introduction to the European market of the Simplex Steria SWIFT Service Bureau in September 2004, which enables interfaces to every major bank globally through the SWIFT network.

"PAYS provides organizations with the ability to achieve greater operational efficiency, reduce risk, improve STP rates, and consolidate and standardize financial messaging overall by providing a tool which can act as a central repository between ERP systems and bank payment systems", explained Michael Dugard, Business Development Banking & Corporates at Simplex. "By combining functional capabilities such as message transformation with new and innovative business applications, PAYS brings flexibility and value to corporate bank communications that has never previously been possible".

PAYS was created to alleviate the IT and operational challenges currently faced by corporations and banks where the existence of multiple ERP systems each containing different message formats, different data flows, communication standards and operating procedures coupled with a similar diversity in Electronic Banking Systems present a significant barrier to 'straight through processing'.

The PAYS proposition is comprised of a number of core components. These include Message Transformation, Invoice Matching, Manual Payment Creation, Payment Authorization, Delivery and Reporting. Simplex's strategy is to deliver further value-added applications derived from the core platform.