Within the next two years, European countries will be standardizing their banking systems, eliminating the distinction between national and intra-European cross-border payments.
Check out the below tip taken from Kees van Westerop of Kwest Consulting's presentation at the Financials 2011 and GRC 2011 conferences taking place in Amsterdam next week for a list of some of the key considerations you’ll want to account for before taking on a SEPA project.
Blueprint Phase Considerations
- Make an inventory of all SEPA-related payment processes
- Consider the processes in all countries, also non-SEPA countries
- Define how the future infrastructure for the SEPA payments
will look - Check how long it takes to change banks
- Big bang Go-Live vs. phased Go-Live
- All countries Go-Live vs. country-by-country Go-Live
- Check how the processes will look during the parallel phase
Realization Phase Considerations
- Test all flows, also from non-SEPA countries
- Do complete integration tests
- Involve the banks in your tests
- Data migration will be difficult
- Inform your customers and vendors
- Think about your external communication: Forms, preprinted paper, etc.
Go-Live Phase Considerations
- Extra workload for the employees
- Old bank accounts may still have business transactions
For more advice on getting started with SEPA, make sure to check out Kees's entire presentation, "Are your payment processes and SAP systems ready for Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA)?" taking place on Tuesday, 7 June from 16:15 - 17:30.
