Ireland's EBS Building Society is using VocaLink's SEPA Accelerator offering to achieve immediate SEPA Direct Debit compliance across its branch network and provide interoperability with other banks and CSMs across the SEPA region.

It also offers the society the flexibility to gradually expand its SEPA services as required and provides access to banks within SEPA through VocaLink's Euro CSM.  

Owen Purcell, EBS head of retail products, said: "SEPA payment instruments are a key enabler for the future of payments across Europe and we are keen on bringing this value to our customers through our payment services. By using VocaLink's SEPA Accelerator, our customers will be able to retain their EBS accounts, for example, when moving abroad, and pay utility bills and rent using their existing account details. At EBS we want to be at the forefront of SEPA payments in Ireland and the VocaLink SEPA Accelerator is a quick and cost-effective solution for becoming SEPA compliant."

The VocaLink Euro CSM was established in July 2007 to process SEPA transactions from January 2008 onwards and offer other payment services. It is now providing SEPA Credit Transfers, SEPA Direct Debit transactions as well as a suite of value-added services including payment capture and mandate management.