A single Euro payment area (SEPA) has been established within the European Common Market, between the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008. As a consequence, the Banca Popolare di Sondrio,
owner of a considerable market share in the context of national and international settlement systems - realized it was risking to lose competitiveness in the area of payments and Direct Debits, both in terms of quality and correctness of the provided services, and in terms of the services costs.
In order to be able to adequately compete, Banca Popolare di Sondrio understood its needs for IT systems which have to be both efficient, to face the foreseen reduction of proceeds, and flexible, to guarantee innovative products support, with high value added.
Therefore, deep and fearless choices are needed: within the Spring 2008, BPS, with Value Team - long run technological partner -, detected an innovative and challenging plan for the complete IT infrastructure renewal, in the context of payments and Direct Debits In the following month of July, the VTPie plan started.
Such plan will be developed on a period of about two years and will bring BPS to be equipped with an infrastructure able to support the integrated and consistent management of different payment types (SEPA Credit Transfers, Euro and Currency Credit Transfers, SEPA Direct Debits and multi-currency operations management). The implementation, over open systems, of a service-based architecture (SOA) may fullfil the requirements for operational costs reduction and the needed rapidity in implementing base modules and value added products, which characterize the specific BPS request.
Duly, in the first days of December 2008, as foreseen, the first step of the detailed plan has been accomplished with the launch of the production for the SEPA Credit Transfer management module. In the following, within the first quarter of 2009, the integrated management will be enabled for all the Credit Transfer typologies handled by the bank.