London, 16th December 2005: Voca, the secure provider of payments services responsible for processing the UK's Direct Debits and Direct Credits, and LINK Interchange Network Ltd, the real time payments processor whose infrastructure powers the UK's ATM network, have jointly been selected by APACS, the UK payments association and its members to supply the central infrastructure for faster payments in the UK.
APACS set up an implementation group which has been developing the specification for faster payments in response to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) Payments Systems Task Force. The new service will significantly increase the speed of credit transfer from one account to another - providing a platform capable of delivering payment processing in near 'real-time' vastly reducing traditional clearing cycles of days.
Voca and LINK were selected for the business in a competitive bid. A joint venture has been created by the two businesses to build, deliver and manage the central infrastructure for faster payments.
Marion King, CEO, Voca, says: "The appointment signifies a real milestone in the payments services offered by banks.. Voca is delighted to be working with LINK to support the drive towards faster payments in the UK . Our new, industry leading, technology infrastructure for payments processing, is complementary to LINK's real-time payments processing services. Together we offer a robust, cost effective and low risk solution, as well as both organisations' extensive experience with banks, businesses and consumers."
John Hardy, CEO, LINK Interchange Network Ltd., says: "LINK's brand strength and experience in the management of secure, real time, reliable and trusted transaction networks for the financial payments industry is a perfect complement to Voca's extensive knowledge of secure payments processing. By working alongside each other we can offer an exceptional faster payments service to financial institutions that will set the benchmark for clearing in the European payments market."
The new service will be delivered in 2007.
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Notes to Editors
About LINK
LINK powers world class electronic real time financial transaction processing and payments solutions for banks, retailers and mobile operators at unrivalled levels of availability. The Company enables businesses in local and global markets to deliver quality services by providing an exceptionally reliable, secure and stable processing infrastructure. LINK's processing capability ensures that customers receive industry leading levels of availability, scalability, response time and consistent high performance transaction throughput. The LINK infrastructure powered in excess of 2.5 billion transactions in 2005 and has delivered 100% switch availability for the past four years to core banking systems that require mission-critical operating requirements.
The Company manages the ATM network for the LINK Card Scheme and provides the technical and commercial services, including arranging settlement, that makes ATM sharing possible with over 55,000 cash machines deployed in the UK and over 101 million LINK-enabled cards in issue. It also manages transactions for the basic bank accounts that form part of the Post Office's universal banking services programme and has implemented an ATM prepay top up service on behalf of mobile phone operators. The Company is pursuing opportunities to use its proven, secure and reliable network infrastructure to support the development and implementation of wider transaction management services and innovative payments solutions.
About Voca
Voca is one of the world's largest and most advanced provider of payments services . Responsible for the technology behind the UK 's automated payments, Voca has processed 55 billion transactions in the last 37 years and has invested in an innovative and flexible technology renewal programme in order to meet the rapidly growing demand for its services. Its' award winning online payments delivery channel, BACSTEL-IP features one of the worlds largest interoperable PKI solution. In the last two years Voca has launched two joint ventures, OneVu, providing electronic bill presentment and payment services, and Digital Payments, which makes payments in new media environments safer, more convenient and cost effective. Voca is committed to and is actively supporting the introduction of a SEPA (Single European Payments Area) and its payment solutions are already well developed to meet the demands of this pan-European programme.
Voca at a glance
•Voca provides technology and services that form the core infrastructure of the UK automated payments industry handling more than 90% of UK salaries, 70% of household bills and the majority of state benefits and pension payments, and had never lost a payment.
•Voca is recognised as the largest processor of Direct Debit and Direct Credit transactions in Europe.
•During 2005 more than 5 billion financial transactions were securely processed, this accounts for 20% of all European bank-to-bank payments.
•Voca processed a peak of more than 75 million transactions on a single day in September 2005.
•More than 100,000 businesses connect to the Voca network, including all of the FTSE 100. 2005 has seen all of them transfer to a highly advanced IP-based submission channel, BACSTEL-IP*.
•Voca has formed two further highly innovative joint ventures:
•OneVu (with US e-billing giant CheckFree), a service designed to revolutionise the way consumers pay bills through their online banking service.
•Digital Payments, a mobile payments venture with Retail Decisions and Mi-Pay which will enable payments over mobile, internet and interactive TV.
•The Voca 100 Salary Index tracks monthly take-home pay levels in the UK , compiled from the salary payments of a sample of 100 of the FTSE 350 companies.
For more information please visit www.voca.com or contact
Isabella Young on 0870 9208634 or Isabella.young@voca.com or
Tim Baxter, College Hill, 020 7457 2020, mobile 07889 137060 or tim.baxter@collegehill.com
*BACSTEL-IP is a registered trademark of BACS Payment Schemes Limited
