Kaleva Travel ready for SEPA:
"Immediate benefits"
With its 18 offices in Finland, affiliates in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania, Kaleva Travel Oy is the largest privately-owned travel agency in Finland. In cooperation with OpusCapita, the company ensured its SEPA-readiness well in advance of end of the transition period and decided to proceed using OpusCapita’s SEPA consultation service. “Of course, SEPA has been included in our financial administration strategies for quite some time, and we have been aware that changes and work await us. However, when we clarified what SEPA was all about and how to proceed in practice, it turned into an opportunity to achieve cost savings. And if you can claim the benefits immediately, why wait?” states Tamara Liimatainen, Finance Manager.
Annually, Kaleva Travel receives over 60,000 purchase invoices, and approximately 60 to 70 per cent of these payments are directed at the SEPA area. Within the common euro payment area, these payments travel as domestic payments in the same format, for the same price and at the same speed.
Tamara Liimatainen estimates that at least 25 per cent of the SEPA area’s payments have been payments that cross borders and, on an annual level, savings in service charges are significant when they become domestic payments.
“The process was
quick and convenient”
The SEPA transition scheme, implemented by OpusCapita for Kaleva Travel, mapped the company’s payment traffic, bank connections and financial administration systems and the materials produced by them as well as its XML capabilities. Based on these, the company received a proposal for the necessary actions and schedules, and because the SEPA standard is continuously updated, the company also received a guarantee regarding any material changes by the end of the transition period in 2010.
“We got off easy and received an excellent, ready package on which to base our decisions regarding implemented solutions and services and the related schedule. The process was quick and convenient,” declares Ms. Liimatainen.
The systems producing Kaleva Travel’s payment materials do not produce SEPA XML material. However, this is not a problem because OpusCapita transfers the current bank standard materials into SEPA-compatible materials. Analysing these materials and testing the changes were included in the transition scheme.
Kaleva Travel will transfer to SEPA concurrently with all its bank connections, and in the autumn, install the new version of OpusCapita, including the Payments Plus software which enables SEPA payments. By that time, all banks used by the company will be ready to receive SEPA payments in XML format. Alongside the transfer, the company will also implement the Web Service connection, which will replace the PATU bank connection. In the future, any new software versions and functionalities that might be introduced when the banks launch their SEPA services can be installed via the remote service connection between Kaleva Travel and OpusCapita.
