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A new survey from BACS, the company behind Direct Debit and BACS Direct Credit
and one of Europe’s leading payment scheme providers, has revealed that one of
the largest ever electronic banking customer migration projects was a resounding
success.
For the last three years, BACS has worked in close partnership with the UK’s
leading banks and some 25 approved software providers to migrate over 100,000
UK-based organisations to BACSTEL-IP – a unique Internet Protocol (IP) payments
channel.
Research figures unveiled by BACS indicate that the phased roll out of BACSTEL-IP
ran to plan and to the overall satisfaction of migrating organisations. When
questioned, nine out of ten BACS users polled described the migration as an
‘easy process with no problems’.
In all, 87% of users also stated that they would definitely recommend BACSTEL-IP
to other organisations with an automated payment processing requirement.
Moving away from traditional telecoms-based systems, BACSTEL-IP is a
multi-layered, highly advanced, online submission channel and the largest Public
Key Infrastructure (PKI) community in the world.
Providing organisations with a faster, more secure service plus the ability to
track and view payment files at any time and from anywhere, BACSTEL-IP has
already processed over two billion transactions on behalf of government
organisations, consumers and UK businesses.
Commenting on the conclusion of the migration project, Michael Chambers,
Managing Director of BACS stated: “The importance of BACS to the UK economy
cannot be underestimated.
"We process 90% of all UK salaries and a wide range of government payments,
including benefit and IR tax credits. With increasing demand for automated
payment methods like Direct Debit and BACS Direct Credit, safeguarding our
payment services was essential.
"BACSTEL-IP represents a significant investment for BACS by its member banks and
was the first step in a £100 million technology renewal programme to re-engineer
our systems.
"It takes processing power to the next level and provides businesses with a
reliable and cost effective way to access BACS services, now and in the future.
“The size of the BACSTEL-IP migration project was unprecedented. Member banks
had to upgrade their own systems, over 40,000 organisations which submit
directly to BACS had to install new software and smart card technology, and
60,000 organisations, which use a bureau to submit payments, had to register for
passwords to access reports online.
"We are delighted the process ran to schedule and that there has been positive
feedback from so many associated parties and users.”
Recognising the scale of what needed to be achieved and to ensure smooth running
at every stage of migration, BACS developed the BACS Approved Software Service.
Launched to coincide with the introduction of BACSTEL-IP in 2003, the service
helped ensure that all software developed to interface with BACSTEL-IP met
stringent BACS standards.
It also gave migrating organisations reassurance that the technology they were
adopting complied with all new technical specifications.
Source:
Getting Paid
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