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‘This is a good change delivering a more convenient transaction model’

Executive Connections is one of those companies that is well-prepared for SEPA

A specialist banking, financial services and accountancy recruitment consultancy, it has been using the SEPA method with its bank since October.

According to Hilarie Geary, managing director at Executive Connections, the main issues it faced were liaising with banks regarding their requirements and the implementation of the changes by its software providers. For example the company’s payroll software provider had to add new functions to their payroll systems to make it compatible with SEPA .

“Our software provider set up an internal method of changing accounts within the payroll system from the sort code/account number into IBAN numbers automatically. They then added a new function for paypath method changing from EMTS to bank transfer filing.

The changeover to SEPA was not without its glitches. “Our bank had some teething issues with using its file-management process, which made it slower than the old EMTS method for a while, but those difficulties seem to have been ironed out subsequently,” said Geary.

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With SEPA already implemented in Executive Connections, what does Geary make of the deadline extension?

“I think for organisations of a larger scale with more global payment transactions the deadline will be welcome. We have been communicating with a number of our clients who have a more complex and diverse payment model than that ours so the implementation is proving to be more time consuming.

“However the consensus is that this is a good change delivering a more convenient transaction model, which will in time be less expensive for cross-border trading.”