trANSACtiON BANKiNG - DZ BANK Gruppe

22 DZ BANK
2012 ANNUAL REPORT
BUSINESS LINES
TRANSACTION BANKING
The switch to SEPA represents both a challenge and
a huge opportunity for the local cooperative banks.
In the Transaction Banking business line, DZ BANK
therefore provided the cooperative banks with ongoing
SEPA support in 2012.
TRANSACTION BANKING
OVERVIEW
For some time now, DZ BANK has been one of the
driving forces behind the further development of
transaction banking services in Germany and the rest
of Europe. In this business line, DZ BANK offers
cooperative banks a broad state-of-the-art range of
products and services covering payments processing,
international documentary business, cash, billing,
and card services, the processing of securities and capital
market products, and custodian bank services. In
2012, DZ BANK expanded and optimized this range
of services, for example in payments processing, where
it implemented the increasing regulatory requirements
and launched ProFi ZV.
This initiative helps the cooperative banks realign
their advisory services for corporate customers in relation
to payments and card processing, allowing
them to provide a holistic advisory service for their
business customers in this regard. DZ BANK also
expanded its card processing business for private customers
and retailers. New opportunities will be
presented in this business in the future, for example,
by new mobile payment systems and by mini chipcard
readers for mobile devices, which DZ BANK is
offering in Germany in partnership with Equens and
the Swedish company iZettle.
SEPA MIGRATION
For some time, a key issue in the Transaction Banking
business line has been the preparation for what is
known as the SEPA end date on February 1, 2014. This
is in fact the date on which SEPA is planned to be
completed and national payments processing systems
will come to an end. As a network-oriented central
institution, DZ BANK completed the technical switch
to SEPA at an early stage. For example, since 2011,
it has been processing around 5.3 million pension payments
a month via SEPA. BICs and IBANs are already
shown on the bank cards of private customers.
However, this issue has not yet found its way on to the
agenda for many corporate customers. The majority
of them have not yet addressed the issue of migrating
to the new system.
The data for bulk payments demonstrates the extent of
the SEPA migration backlog at corporate customers
that still need to switch their accounting and payments
processing systems. In 2012 alone, DZ BANK in conjunction
with its service provider in this area of business,
Equens, processed around 4.2 billion transactions.
The proportion of SEPA payments was less than
4 percent. Progress was particularly slow in the conversion
of direct debits, which account for the bulk
of domestic transactions in the cooperative financial
network. Considerably fewer than 1 percent of the
direct debits processed by DZ BANK in 2012 were
SEPA direct debits.

DZ BANK
2012 ANNUAL REPORT
BUSINESS LINES
TRANSACTION BANKING
23
Supporting customers – exploiting opportunities
Many corporate customers will also have a significant
need for information and support in relation to the
migration to SEPA. This applies particularly in respect
of the integration of SEPA direct debit mandates into
payments processes. This means that the migration to
SEPA represents an even greater opportunity for the
cooperative financial network to prove itself as an expert
partner in corporate banking and solution provider for
payments processing, increase customer loyalty, and
generate additional payments processing business. In
2012, DZ BANK responded to the situation by creating
a package of services covering all relevant aspects
of migration to SEPA and offering these services to the
local cooperative banks. This will enable the cooperative
banks to offer their corporate customers a comprehensive
support service for conversion of their systems
to SEPA.
SEPA Navigator
One of the core elements in this regard is SEPA Navigator,
which was developed by DZ BANK in collaboration
with the local cooperative banks and launched in August
2012. The cooperative banks can integrate this system
into their websites free of charge. SEPA Navigator is
aimed first and foremost at corporate customers of the
cooperative banks and helps them draw up a reliable
overview of the status of SEPA implementation in their
respective organizations. At the same time, the corporate
customers are provided with sound advice on carrying
out the migration to SEPA. SEPA Navigator also gives
the cooperative banks a tool to help them determine
the specific requirements of corporate customers in relation
to the migration to SEPA and identify those corporate
customers in immediate need of assistance. SEPA
Navigator also includes links allowing customers to
make direct contact with their relationship manager if
they have specific questions and/or problems.
In addition to the corporate customer version of SEPA
Navigator, DZ BANK also offers the cooperative
banks a customer advisor version, which the banks can
use as an aid in situations where they are providing
specific customer advice.
SEPA Navigator has been very well received by the
cooperative banks. By the end of 2012, the majority of
local cooperative banks had integrated it into their
websites, thereby making it available to their corporate
customers.
In the third quarter of 2012, DZ BANK set up a
SEPA hotline to complement SEPA Navigator. This
hotline serves as the central point of contact for the
coordination of all internal technical, process-related,
and organizational issues that the cooperative banks
may have in connection with the migration to SEPA.
The SEPA hotline has also met with a good response
from the local cooperative banks, which are making
increasing use of this option.
DZ BANK is also providing support for the cooperative
banks in the form of materials, such as checklists
for corporate customers, letter templates, and model
presentations, as well as offering training sessions. In
2012 alone, experts from DZ BANK held approximately
90 employee training sessions at local cooperative
banks and also organized 100 corporate customer
events jointly with these banks in connection with
the switch to SEPA.
Practical solutions
During 2012, DZ BANK carried out work on practical
solutions for the SEPA migration to enable the local
cooperative banks to provide their corporate customers
with optimum support in this regard. This work was
based, among other things, on the results from two
dialog forums on the subject of mandate services organized
by DZ BANK with payments processing experts
from the local cooperative banks. These results set out
specific requirements to help corporate customers with
the switch to the SEPA direct debits system. This included,
for example, the provision of electronic form
templates for SEPA mandates, the import and export
of mandate information, and also the conversion of
payment orders from the DTAUS file format to SEPA
payment orders. One of the main challenges was and
remains the need to meet the different individual
requirements, for example, of medium-sized companies
or other business customers. This is one of the key
prerequisites for ensuring that the migration to SEPA
functions well for all corporate customers. It is a
significant challenge for the Transaction Banking
business line in 2013.