The new Millenium problem

SEPA and IBAN

As you may have noticed the introduction of SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) is an initiative to create a single set of standards for euro payments.

The BAN (Bank Account Number) as we are familiar with will, and must be, replaced/implemented by the IBAN (International Bank Account Number) before February 2014.

From February 2014 payments can only be done if you use the mandatory IBAN and the BIC (Bank Identification Codes).

The main schemes involved, for doing that, are the SCT (SEPA Credit Transfer) cross-border scheme, that allows you to transfer payments between any SEPA country, and the SDD (SEPA Direct Debit) scheme to collect payments form any SEPA country. Both will replace the existing domestic schemes. (for example CLIEOP3 ).

Result of SEPA and the IBAN is that the total number of characters exceeds that of the BAN, the format of the interface with your bank will change. So you will have to make changes in your IT environment to deal with it.

Already a bit nervous?

Let me summarize some points for you to get grip on the situation:

• Where is my BAN published (financial documents, bills, site, relations, business cards etc… )
• Make an inventory of your existing processes, IT and organization that are hit by the BAN.
• Setup of a project plan:

1. to get the new IBAN’s (employees, suppliers, customers etc)
2. to migrate your existing IT infrastructure. (schemes, BAN/IBAN, Replacement of existing domestic schemes, processes, validations etc… )
3. to republish your own IBAN.
4. to testing, testing, testing

• Make inquiries by your bank to avoid any misunderstanding.

February 2014 seems far away but don’t let it fool you because there are already companies, at the moment, migrating to the IBAN and it seems, as I heard, a lot of work to achieve that.

Bert Hogendoorn, Migration consultant at Compuware Uniface

Uniface Applications

Most Uniface applications have been around long enough to survive the Millenium problem and the introduction of the Euro. They will be able to handle the changes requires for SEPA and IBAN too.

Bank account numbers can be found in Uniface applications more easily than in other applications. For a start search the repository for the bank account numbers and create a cross reference to see in which programs they are used.

The new interface format for the bank is XML based, so importing the WSDL will give you a good start for rebuilding your interface software.

The changes in your Uniface application may not be the biggest challenge. Other aspects like obtaining all your customers and suppliers IBAN's or agreeing with your bank on the details of the interfacing could be even more difficult.
The hard and final deadline is February 2014, but the national implementation plans state that all software should be SEPA ready by October 2012.

Theo Neeskens, Solution architect at Compuware Uniface