JP Morgan’s Treasury Services business is planning to introduce SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) services on November 2nd, 2009, the inaugural day of the new SEPA scheme to help its clients to improve European receivables management. JP Morgan expects that its financial institution and corporate clients will be able to participate in both the core business-to-consumer and business-to-business schemes.
JP Morgan has said that its clients making or receiving payments can domicile accounts in any of its European branches, and transaction activity can be monitored via the firm’s online tool, JP Morgan ACCESSSM. The bank has added that its capabilities are ready a year before the deadline proposed by EU regulation on cross border Payments, which requires Eurozone banks to offer payments via SDD to their clients by November 1st, 2010.
Reportedly, SDD is a pan-regional cross-border direct debit instrument that provides clients with a simple way to collect high volume payments in Europe. It offers many benefits to corporates, including: control over collections as authorised SDD transactions are irrevocable; guaranteed transmission of 140 characters of remittance information; and the opportunity to rationalise the number of accounts in Europe.
Alex Caviezel, head of JP Morgan Treasury Services in Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: “JP Morgan has supported SEPA as an initiative to standardise payables and receivables in Europe, and the SEPA Direct Debit is the next logical step in its evolution. As all Eurozone banks will be reachable by SDD by late 2010, corporates can now start preparing to reap the benefits of this new payment instrument which will help centralise and standardise high volumes of collections.”
