Of course the migration has a cost for us

The countdown has begun. Between 80,000 and 100,000 business French using the banking communication protocol Etebac must begin to change their system of transfer, investment and management of cash from November. France Telecom, which provided for thirty years the network X 25 for the use of this historic protocol, will stop its marketing in 2010 and its maintenance in 2011. The arrival of the Sepa transfer makes also obsolete the use of certain communication formats. "The site will be huge." In practice, nearly 200 customers a day to migrate to the banks and publishers, who are not necessarily teams to tackle. "Customers are no longer recover their statements of accounts and the trace of their cash management," warns Elisabeth associated Vendeville, Director of Tresam Council.

Three options

To find a solution, almost two years of work have been necessary for the French banking standards (CFONB) and Organization Committee, in charge of the issues of banking technical standards, to advocate for three options in November 2008. Two that already exist: secure Internet (IP) Protocol and the Swiftnet solution dedicated to multinational corporations. And one which is the Germany Bank standard since January 2008: Ebics. Banks will have to be in a position from November to provide these three solutions.

It is the establishment of Ebics today raises the most problem. "We began a project to replace our platform for communication with business three years ago." "The objective was to add the Protocol Ebics that we use not before", explained Philippe Blanchet, range responsible for cash management at Société Générale. Same sound of a Bell in BNP Paribas: "We we're put in industrial mode to migrate all our offices back." "Internally, this project involves several layers of our activity: the"product managers"working channels of transmission, computer teams and also the commercial and marketing", explains Stéphane Fouchardière, responsible connectivity business Swift at BNP Paribas. The France and the Germany have also agreed to create a joint company for the detention and the development of the Ebics (see below) specifications.

In the meantime, banks have implemented testing full-scale with their customers. "We realized a first test in June with a platform client". "These tests will continue throughout the summer and we will be ready to begin the migration in November", assures Philippe Blanchet. For the CFONB, it will be each bank to manage its own phase pilot. "We must have done switch our customers here to end 2010-2011," says Bernard Gouraud, Director BPCE technologies (Bank people's Caisse d'Epargne).

An opportunity

The latter is one of the few banks to hold a company that publishes itself cash software (Turbo SA) and which should, in the image of the other publishers such as Sage or SAP, adapt its solutions to the recommendations of the CFONB. "The most important work will finally be across all our brands tech training so that they inform in the best companies, provides Bernard Gouraud." But there will be no tsunami for the latter. It will be especially for they turn this obligation into opportunity: lower communication costs and exchange documents longer and more secure with their banks.

This idea of looking for opportunity, banks it also have in mind. "Of course, the migration has a cost for us." "But it will bring us if it has the intelligence to provide value added services such as providing complete connection tools, for example", concludes the Fouchardière Stéphane. BNP Paribas has also released the "cash-management box", a connection tool all in one for the management of cash flow of a business. The migration of communication systems is far away in the end be an also costly project as Basel 2 or the implementation of the Sepa. Some refer to the figure of "a few tens of millions of euros".But the subject remains taboo.