Luxembourg banks opt for the SEPA Direct Debit Service from CETREL

Dexia BIL and Société Générale Bank & Trust process direct debits in the Single Euro Payment Area using CETREL’s payment traffic infrastructure.

Luxembourg/Zurich, July 28, 2010 – Dexia BIL and Société Générale Bank & Trust are the first banks in Luxembourg to use the SEPA Direct Debit Service provided by CETREL, a SIX Group company. The service offering enables the two banks to outsource the entire processing of customer direct debits and thus avoid an expensive adaptation of their own payment traffic infrastructure.

This service offering augments the solution for national direct debits, which CETREL has operated for the primary banks in Luxembourg for more than ten years. It was developed for the main players in Luxembourg to enable them to also process cross-border debits in the other 31 countries within the SEPA zone.

The offer enables banks of all sizes to outsource the processing of SEPA direct debits inexpensively and in a manner compliant with the legal requirements. CETREL, SIX Group and SECB provide the technical requirements for the processing of SEPA direct debits according to the rules that apply throughout Europe. In this way, financial institutions in the SEPA zone can offer their customers euro direct debits easily, rapidly and advantageously, without having to make expensive adaptations to their payment traffic infrastructure (e.g., their e-banking applications).

In addition to banks in Luxembourg, financial institutions in Switzerland and Monaco are also participating in the SEPA Direct Debit Scheme through the service offered by SIX Group.

SEPA

The European Union and the European Central Bank are consistently driving the creation of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). Towards this end, the legal conditions and legal standards for the processing of cashless payment transactions are being standardized. The liberalization and opening of markets in the euro zone are being encouraged with these measures.

The first milestone was achieved by the European Payment Council (EPC) in January 2008, when SEPA credit transfers were introduced in more than 30 European countries, including Luxembourg. The SEPA Direct Debit Scheme has been in operation since November 2, 2009.

Information

CETREL S.A., Renaud Oury: +352 3 55 66-1 or Fabrice Poinsignon: +352 3 55 66-1

CETREL S.A.

As the Luxembourg market leader in the field of card processing, CETREL offers a wide-ranging assortment of solutions for the processing of electronic payments. CETEL provides the processing of payment transactions for card issuers as well as the acceptance of cards on the retail level. Since its founding in 1985, CETREL has steadily increased its expertise and thus expanded its customer portfolio, which has also led to success outside Luxembourg in recent years.

As an indispensible player in the Luxembourg financial center, CETREL uses its status as a "Professionnel du Secteur Financier" (PSF), to offer relevant solutions for local and international financial institutions. In this way, CETREL strengthens its position as a reliable partner and provider of centralized solutions with excellent added value. CETREL specifically operates the MultiLine, SOFiE and LuxTrust systems for the processing of national direct debits and offers IT infrastructure services, such as a multifunctional network for Luxembourg banks, companies and administrative authorities.

CETREL has been a corporation since January 2009, shares in which are held by the primary banks of the Luxembourg financial center, the Post and telecommunications company, as well as SIX Group. With a total of 180 employees, the company generated turnover of over EUR 35 million in the business year 2007.
(www.cetrel.lu)

SIX Group

SIX Group operates the Swiss financial center infrastructure and offers top-quality services on a global scale in the fields of securities trading and settlement, financial information and payment traffic. The company, which emanated from the merger of the SWX Group, Telekurs Group and SIS Group at the start of 2008, is owned by its users (160 banks of various sizes and orientations) and with its workforce of approximately 3‚700 employees and presence in 23 countries generates annual turnover of over 1.3 billion Swiss francs.
(www.six-group.com)

SECB Swiss Euro Clearing Bank

SECB Swiss Euro Clearing Bank GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, was founded in 1998 and is a universal bank according to the German Banking Act. The shareholders – SIX Group, Credit Suisse, UBS and the Swiss Post (PostFinance) – each hold a 25 percent stake in SECB. The SECB acts as the system manager of the euroSIC system from SIX Interbank Clearing and in this regard is charged with the monitoring and control of the system and its liquidity management. For the euroSIC participants it provides the connections to the leading euro clearing systems, such as TARGET2, the European Central Bank’s RTGS system, or STEP1, the clearing system of the Euro Banking Association (EBA).