EBA Group signs up for Transduco Pavilion at the European Banking and Insurance Fair

EBA Group signs up for Transduco Pavilion at the European Banking and Insurance Fair

- EBA Group to raise awareness of payments offerings such as EURO1, STEP1 and STEP2

London and Frankfurt, 5 September, 2007 – Transduco, the specialist provider of cross-border business development services for companies operating across the English, French and German speaking financial services technology sectors announced today that the EBA Group, the pan-European body for payments practitioners, will exhibit on the Transduco Pavilion at the European Banking and Insurance Fair (E.B.I.F.).

The Euro Banking Association (EBA) and EBA CLEARING play a major role in the financial industry as a developer of European payment infrastructures and discussion forum for payment practitioners. Europe’s largest independent technology trade fair for the banking and insurance sectors gives EBA CLEARING a key channel to raise awareness in German speaking markets of its various payments offerings such as EURO1, STEP1 and STEP2.

“The profound changes that the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) will bring as well as the introduction of EBA´s Priority Payments Scheme encouraged us to participate in the E.B.I.F for the first time. We were impressed with the business concept of the Transduco Pavilion. It gives us the chance to cost-effectively maintain the close dialogue that we have with key members and partners in the payment industry in one of Europe’s most important financial centres. The Transduco Pavilion will enable us to raise awareness without the traditional organisational and logistical distractions inherent in attending industry events,” said Claus F. Hilles, Regional Representative, EBA Group, “We were attracted by the high quality of the other companies on the Transduco Pavilion, such as SWIFT. This reinforces our view that the Transduco Pavilion will deliver targeted relevant traffic to the shared stand.”

“With more than 7,000 international users and decision-makers from financial and insurance institutions expected to visit E.B.I.F., the Transduco Pavilion offers direct access to the German speaking market without the time and resource overheads associated with traditional business events. The addition of EBA to the Transduco Pavilion at E.B.I.F. highlights the attractiveness of our low risk, low cost approach to generating exposure to the German speaking market,” said Stefan Mies, Founder and Managing Director of Transduco.

The Transduco Pavilion is a cost effective method of gaining access to the German speaking market. Suppliers have full local language support from Transduco and a prime position within the exhibition area.

Thomas Schuetz, Managing Director of Messe Frankfurt Ausstellungen said, “I am very excited that in its tenth year, E.B.I.F. has attracted another major industry body such as EBA, which maintains the high quality of the event that our delegates have come to expect. Additionally, attendees of the Euro Finance Week conference event will be directed into the conference area, providing a significant increase in attendance levels, which can only benefit companies on the Transduco Pavilion.”

Mies added, “There is continued interest in the second Transduco Pavilion, and we are in the process of finalising the exhibitor list, however the format provides flexibility for expansion to cope with late bookings. With two major industry standards bodies such as EBA and SWIFT, along with key technology vendors, delegates can stay informed on the latest practical strategies, industry trends, market analysis and technology solutions that will support their business in the coming years.”
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About Transduco
Transduco is a specialist provider of cross-border business development and market entry services for companies operating in the financial services technology sector. English, German and French speaking companies are their specialty. Transduco offers multi-lingual resources to support sales and marketing programs targeted to the German speaking market including business or technology partner relationship management, innovative and affordable exhibition opportunities at major industry events through the unique “Transduco Pavilions”, language and culture-oriented coaching for business and IT executives and translation services. For further information, please visit www.transduco.com.

About Euro Banking Association (EBA)
The Euro Banking Association (EBA), www.abe-eba.eu, includes over 190 member banks from EU countries, the United States, Switzerland, Norway, Australia Japan, China, India, the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates. EBA was founded in 1985 by 18 commercial banks and the European Investment Bank, with the support of the European Commission. Today, the EBA acts as a forum for the European payments industry and fosters the development of pan-European payment system initiatives. Having created the large-value payment system EURO1 and the low-value payment system STEP1, the EBA also signed responsible for the development of STEP2, a pan-European ACH-type system.
The EBA recognised at an early stage the banks’ need to be able to offer their corporate and retail customers cross-border payment services in euro, at cost and service levels comparable to domestic payment services. With the introduction of the EC Regulation 2560/2001 on cross-border euro payments, the need for a highly efficient bulk payments infrastructure became yet more pressing. Against this background, the EBA initiated the development of STEP2, a pan-European automated clearing house (PE-ACH), to help meet the banks’ requirements by providing them with a highly automated system that is capable of processing crossborder credit transfers within the EU at low cost.

EBA CLEARING, www.ebaclearing.eu, was established in June 1998 by 52 EBA clearing banks as a separate entity to operate the EURO1 large-value payment system (launched in November 1998) and the STEP1 low-value payment system (launched in November 2000). EURO1 and STEP1 provide an efficient, secure and cost-effective infrastructure to the banks in Europe for channelling their commercial and large-value cross-border payments. EURO1 and STEP1 are based on the messaging infrastructure and computing facilities provided by SWIFT. EURO1 settles at the end of the day via a settlement account at the European Central Bank. The average number of daily transactions processed by the EURO1 and STEP1 systems today amounts to over 185,000 for a total value of around €195 billion. EURO1 comprises 70 direct bank participants and 58 indirect participants; STEP1 includes over 115 participants. Since April 2003, EBA CLEARING has been managing and operating STEP2, a pan-European ACH-service for mass payments in euro. At present, STEP2 counts 105 direct participants and more than 1,600 indirect participants. STEP2 processes around 250,000 payments per day.

Press contact: Jenny Swift, Rivercalm: North America Tel: 001 917 210 8064 or Europe Tel: 0044 207 665 1636 Email: swift {at} rivercalm(.)com