With the creation of the company ServiPagos, which specialises in managing receipts through SEPA (single European payments area), Cecabank is enabling documentation on payments between bank accounts to be exchanged through the new eulia service (www.ealia.es),.
The ealia service therefore offers an immediate solution to the situation caused by the drastic shortening of the descriptive text accompanying direct debits following their migration to the European SEPA standard, as the length of the text field explaining the charge has been cut from 640 to 140 characters.
The pre-SEPA message format, which is still in effect on a transitional basis, allows an extensive description of the reasons for the charge. This meant service providers could distribute bills together with the charge through the banks so customers could print it out with their bank statements. The SEPA standard for charges will be obligatory as of 10 June, which means that issuers that do not opt to use the new ealia service will no longer be able to distribute their bills via bank channels.
Cecabank has invited all the banks to take part in the ealia service.This will allow them to offer their bill issuing customers (insurance companies, associations or public authorities) the option to continue sending bills of the same length as before. End customers, on the other hand, can carry on using banking channels, and in particular online banking, as a way of integrating the various billing information they receive.
ServiPagos and its ealia service form part of a project promoted by Cecabank, a wholesale bank, specialising in providing technology and financial services to other banks.
