CGI Group, a provider of information technology and business process services, and global information services company Experian have joined forces to help corporates migrate direct debits to meet the requirements of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).

Under the terms of the deal, CGI will offer Experian's pan-European bank account data validation services to maximise straight-through-processing rates for corporates migrating to SEPA direct debit (SDD) using CGI’s portfolio of SEPA solutions.

In Europe more than 4 billion direct debit mandates will need to be migrated to SEPA standards. Businesses using domestic systems and account numbers must convert to the international standards of IBAN and BIC by February 2014 for all transactions in the Eurozone.

Inaccurate, out-of-date account information will be a major issue for corporates migrating to SEPA standards. Poor quality data risks imposing additional costs on businesses and for many could result in collection failures and penalties. Whilst today many banks provide exception handling free of charge, with SEPA the expectation is that they will not be able to do this and corporates will risk payment failure and the associated costs. Recent research from Experian suggests this could be up to 12 percent of all transactions. With an estimated cost of payment failure at EUR 50 per transaction, a corporate with 100,000 records could expect to register a cost of failure of EUR 600,000 per monthly transaction cycle.

Experian allows businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also provides individuals with the ability to check their credit report and credit score and protect against identity theft. CGI was founded in 1976 as a provider of business and IT consulting services, systems integration, application development and maintenance, infrastructure management as well as proprietary solutions.