One Question For: Imre Mentsik, Bank Austria Creditanstalt

How is your organization aiming to achieve leadership in cross-border payments processing?

The formation of the Single European Payments Area (SEPA) encourages all participants in the payments industry to lower processing costs and increase efficiency. As a first step, our banking group decided to replace its old-fashioned cross-border payment system with a new state-of-the art IT application. As a result of a large-scale RFP process, Fundtech's (Jersey City, N.J.) Global PAYPlus product, which covers all current and future requirements in our payments business, was selected. Whether the system is locally operated or hosted in a shared service center, the new technology enables us to provide comprehensive payment and cash management products for corporate and financial institutions.

We believe that a strong concentration process in the payments business is to be foreseen. Business models for cooperation, white labeling and insourcing are evaluated by several banks in order to be compared with continuous investment in their own processing. Bank Austria Creditanstalt is, like other leading banks in Europe, well equipped to offer its insourcing capacities to partner banks.

Imre Mentsik, Senior Manager, Clearing and Payment Products, Bank Austria Creditanstalt (Vienna)