VocaLink, the international payments specialists, today announced that it has partnered with SMA Financial to deliver smart, comprehensive connectivity solutions to banks and their corporate customers in the UK.
The service, which is an extension of VocaLink's established Service Bureau, offers advanced transformation and routing solutions as well as providing viable, low cost, hosted connectivity to a range of channels including SWIFTNet. Designed to remove the in-house operational cost of managing multiple bank relationships, it enables banks to consolidate multiple accounts through a single standardised platform whilst benefiting from economies of scale. Corporate customers will also benefit, by gaining easier access to their chosen payment service provider and banks through this single access point for all of their payments, regardless of the format.
The partnership strengthens VocaLink's core offering in the UK to provide its customers with high volume, reliable payments processing in a cost effective environment. It builds upon VocaLink's established relationship with SMA, having worked on a number of business and technical SWIFT projects over the last three years. The collaboration will enable VocaLink to offer greater flexibility for designing efficient migration and payments consolidation strategies for UK banks, allowing them to reap the benefits of cost reduction and improved control.
Simon Murby, Managing Director at SMA Financial, comments: "By partnering with SMA and leveraging its SWIFT outsource and messaging expertise, VocaLink has strengthened its position as a leading player in the payments industry. The partnership will ensure VocaLink's customers can concentrate on running their core business safe in the knowledge that all of their payments needs will be managed by the two industry experts in financial messaging. As VocaLink's Bureau of choice for the UK market, it reinforces SMA's position as the leading provider of outsourced SWIFT connectivity and related services."
Fred Bär, Managing Director for Euro Services at VocaLink commented: "This partnership allows us to offer a range of advanced connectivity capabilities andes and standards, enabling our customers to benefit from a single route for all their connectivity, transformation and routing needs. By outsourcing to payments and connectivity specialists, operational overheads are greatly reduced and banks and corporates are able to streamline their payments, increase straight-through processing (STP) and reduce operational risk. As a result, we are able to fulfil the highest requirements in terms of stability, availability and security at the same time."