Creating a next-generation payments platform with Logica’s All Payments Solution

“Through our partnership with Logica, we can provide our financial institution clients with access to SEPA clearing services based on best-of-breed technology. ” Marcus Sehr, Director of Wholesale Solutions, Global Transaction Banking at Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank: Creating a next-generation payments platform with Logica’s All Payments Solution
Fierce competition from non-banks entering the financial services sector and a changing payments landscape were strong catalysts for Deutsche Bank’s decision to overhaul its payments environment. Rather than simply making the necessary changes to meet new market demands and comply with SEPA requirements, Deutsche Bank decided to use this opportunity to act on its vision to become the preeminent payments and clearing service provider in Europe.

To help it achieve this goal, Deutsche Bank chose to work with its long-standing technology partner, Logica. This was due to Logica’s 36-year heritage in payments, the business and technical expertise of its team, as well as its proven track record in global implementations and support.

Handling SEPA Credit Transfers & domestic instruments
The initial implementation of LAPS, which replaced a number of disparate systems, started in January 2007 and had to be rolled out to ten European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the UK) in readiness for the launch of SCTs in January 2008. A single instance of the software was installed at Deutsche Bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. From this central hub, LAPS serves all ten countries, which operate as separate legal entities with their own business rules, user population and data visibility restrictions.

LAPS has also fully automated the end-to-end payments process in an extremely complex environment, with a number of general ledger systems as well as multiple time zones, languages and currencies. The combined Deutsche Bank and Logica team ensured that this phase of the project was completed within the budget and the ambitious timeline set.

Continued innovation with SEPA Direct Debits
The introduction of SDDs, which came into effect in November 2009, posed an even more significant challenge than SCTs because the nature of direct debits is more complex. Having implemented a system for SCTs, many banks required another product to achieve SDD readiness. Deutsche Bank and Logica’s long-term payments strategy meant that LAPS could be easily configured to process SDDs in addition to SCTs and domestic instruments. As a result, Deutsche Bank was the first bank in Europe to be fully SEPA compliant.

Delivering outsourced SEPA services
The scalable design of LAPS, with its capacity for handling large volumes without manual intervention, enables user banks to create new revenue streams through payments processing. Deutsche Bank’s implementation of LAPS has allowed it to deliver outsourced SEPA services. Given the level of infrastructure investment costs associated with SEPA compliance, this is an increasingly attractive option for smaller banks.

A recognised hub for payments processing
Deutsche Bank today processes more SEPA transactions than any other financial institution. In November 2009 alone there were 1.2 million SCT transactions, of which Deutsche Bank processed approximately 10%. Additionally on November 2nd 2009 (the first day of SDDs going live), 71% of all SDDs processed were through Deutsche Bank’s payments hub.This deployment has given the bank a next-generation payments platform, which is future-proofed for further market infrastructure changes.

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