21 Aug 2006
Australian payments technology company, Distra Pty Ltd, has entered into an
exclusive arrangement with Voca Limited, the leading provider of payments
services to banks and corporates, to provide its next generation payments
technology into a range of Voca payments solutions targeted at the UK and
European markets.
Voca is responsible for the technology behind the UK's automated payments,
processing 55 billion transactions in the last 38 years. It is also the largest
processor of Direct Debit and Direct Credit transactions in Europe. Voca is
working with LINK to supply the central infrastructure for the new Faster
Payments service which will be launched in the UK in 2007. In addition Voca has
also launched the Voca Payments Switch, a software solution enabling banks to
connect to the Faster Payments scheme.
Nick Masterson-Jones, Director of Information Technology for Voca, said: "We
selected Distra's technology as a key component of our solutions because its
uniquely innovative architecture provides a combination of real-time
performance, reliability and agility. Banks are under significant pressure to
introduce new services to customers within an ever-changing payments landscape.
Distra's technology helps us fulfil their immediate requirements, as well as
provide the flexibility to prepare for the future."
Mike Aston, Chief Executive Officer of Distra said: "We are delighted to be
working closely with one of the world's leading suppliers of payments services.
We recognised the huge potential for next generation payments technology arising
out of new initiatives in the UK, such as the Faster Payments scheme, and the
massive changes sweeping the European payments landscape under the SEPA
initiative. Our relationship with Voca provides a highly effective channel for
bringing our innovative payments technology to this exciting market."
In support of the new relationship, Distra has appointed George Ogden as
Regional Sales Director for Distra in the EMEA region, based at Distra's sales
office in NW London, UK. Prior to joining Distra, George was Market Development
Director for S2 Systems and Regional Director EMEA for IFS International.
About Voca
Voca is the provider of payments services to banks and corporates.
Responsible for the technology behind the UK's automated payments, Voca has
processed 55 billion transactions in the last 38 years and in the summer of 2006
completed an innovative and flexible IT programme in order to meet the rapidly
growing demand for its services.
Voca provides technology and services that form the core infrastructure of
the UK automated payments industry handling more than 90% of UK salaries, 70% of
household bills and the majority of state benefits and pension payments, and has
never lost a payment.
Voca is recognised as the largest processor of Direct Debit and Direct Credit
transactions in Europe. During 2005 more than 5 billion financial transactions
were securely processed, this accounts for 15% of all European automated
payments. Voca processed a peak of 78 million transactions on a single day in
June 2006.
More than 100,000 businesses connect to the Voca network, including all of
the FTSE 100. 2005 saw all of them transfer to a highly advanced IP-based
submission channel, BACSTEL-IP .
Voca is working with LINK to supply the central infrastructure for the faster
payments service which will be launched in the UK in 2007.
Additionally, Voca is committed to and is actively supporting the
introduction of a SEPA (Single European Payments Area) and its payment solutions
are already well developed to meet the demands of this pan-European
programme.
Please visit http://www.voca.com for more
information or contact Liz.Barrass@voca.com
About Distra
Formed in 1999, Distra is an Australian software company specialising in
payments applications and high performance, high availability transaction
processing. Distra's enterprise class products are designed for use by financial
institutions, payments processors and other institutions operating in the
payments chain. In a changing, dynamic payments market Distra provides improved
reliability, increased business agility and significantly lower costs of
operation for equivalent application and infrastructure environments.
Distra's head offices are located in Sydney Australia and it also has sales
offices located in Singapore and London.
For further information please click here
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