The agreement will see Crédit Agricole CIB work with Experian to offer Crédit Agricole CIB's corporate banking customers access to Experian's market leading range of global payment validation and automated data conversion services.

Clients of Crédit Agricole CIB choosing Experian's services will be able to validate and convert their existing payment records to the required IBAN and BIC formats across the whole SEPA region. The collection of new account information will also be enhanced with validation at point of capture available across 228 countries and territories worldwide.

Clients will be able to more effectively and efficiently initiate payments to and from the SEPA region from anywhere in the world, moving away from higher cost payment mechanisms to lower cost SEPA payments and reduce costly delays associated with reprocessing failed payments.

Jerome Cavaliero, Head of Western European Sales, Global Transaction Banking at Crédit Agricole CIB, comments: "By working with Experian we are able to offer to help our customers ensure that both existing and new bank account details are successfully collected, validated and converted into the right format. This should help our customers who will be able to meet anticipated SEPA deadlines, improve their straight through processing rate and reduce their costs for incorrect or rejected payments.

Jonathan Williams, Director of Strategic Development at Experian Payments, comments: "Experian's agreement with Crédit Agricole CIB highlights growing demand from corporate banking customers for support in meeting SEPA data requirements prior to the anticipated deadlines of 2013 for SEPA Credit Transfers and 2014 for SEPA Direct Debits. Validation and conversion of bank account data for new and existing payments is crucial to ensuring that SEPA is implemented smoothly and at minimum cost to the bank, its corporate customers and their clients and suppliers."