Bulgarian BORICA-BANKSERVICE and Equens Cooperate in SEPA Processing

UTRECHT, The Netherlands and SOFIA, Bulgaria, September 19, 2011
(ots/PRNewswire) --

10th Inter-CSM Agreement for Equens with Bulgarian ACH

BORICA-BANKSERVICE AD, Bulgaria's national clearing house, and
Equens SE recently signed a bilateral agreement for the exchange of
SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) payments. For Equens, one of the largest
European card and payment processors, this 10th inter-CSM agreement
underlines its continuous dedication to SEPA. The partnership is
scheduled to go live before the end of this year.

This agreement is an important step in optimising the financial
flows between Eastern and Western European countries. The
collaboration provides the banks of both communities with a fast,
cheap and low-risk method of achieving reach with the banks of the
other community and enables simple and effective exchange of SEPA
payments. The partnership is based on the Interoperability Framework
of the European Automated Clearing House Association (EACHA).[1]

The partnership with BORICA-BANKSERVICE AD represents Equens'
10th CSM interoperability[2] agreement. As one of the major
processors in the SEPA region, Equens offers full reach to all its
clients throughout Europe. The company is currently processing SEPA
transactions for banks and CSMs in sixteen European countries, and is
constantly expanding its CSM community and interoperability with
other CSMs across Europe and beyond. In addition to the agreement
with the Bulgarian BORICA-BANKSERVICE, recent developments include
the exchange of SDD transactions with SECB (Switzerland) in August
and the signed agreement with TransFond (Romania) for SCT last June.

Michel Stuijt, General Manager of Market Management at Equens:
"We are very pleased to establish this bilateral link with
BORICA-BANKSERVICE AD. We truly believe in the importance of SEPA.
Our SEPA transaction volumes and client demand consistently show
progressive growth. Based on our strong European foothold and
promising outlook, we will continue to invest in SEPA, both for
inter-bank and intra-bank processing. The connection to
BORICA-BANKSERVICE is an important step for us to improve our reach
in Bulgaria as it offers substantial benefits for our clients with
connections in Bulgaria in terms of reachability, speed and costs."

Aleksandar Stanev, Procurator and Chief Director of Business
Development - Payment, Information and Software Services at
BORICA-BANKSERVICE AD: "BORICA-BANKSERVICE AD, one of the founding
members of EACHA, strongly supports SEPA development as an important
milestone for the integration of payments across Europe. Links
between CMSs are essential bridges between communities and they will
ensure SEPA benefits for banking clients. The connection to Equens
will enrich the current reachability[3] of our clients and is an
important step in our continuing effort to expand the SEPA
reachability of our community."

Note to editors:

About BORICA-BANKSERVICE:

BORICA-BANKSERVICE plays an important role as an infrastructure
provider for the Bulgarian payments industry - both for retail and
card payments. Among the company's main priorities is the development
and operation of payment systems. Those priorities ensure
high-quality, reliable and innovative payments for all participants.

Another important focus of the company is to develop and offer
value-added services with the purpose of expanding the scope of
payment services. These services include electronic invoicing
presentment and payments, as well as electronic identities for secure
transactions.

BORICA-BANKSERVICE AD strongly supports SEPA development and is
one of the founding members of EACHA.

For additional information on BORICA-BANKSERVICE AD, please visit
http://www.bobs.bg.

About Equens

Equens SE is one of the largest payment processors in Europe,
leading the market for future-proof payment and card solutions.
Thanks to an extensive and competitive range of services, the company
seamlessly meets the requirements and wishes of the European payments
market. Equens supports the development of a single, uniform European
payments market (SEPA), and is dedicated to the standardisation and
harmonisation of European and global payments. With clients and
partnerships in multiple European countries, the company offers
pan-European market coverage from offices in four countries - the
Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Finland. With an annual processing
volume of 9.7 billion payments and 3.9 billion POS and ATM
transactions, Equens SE has a European market share of more than
12.5%.

For additional information on Equens, please visit
http://www.equens.com.

1. EACHA - the European Automated Clearing House Association -
promotes and ensures harmonisation in terms of technical
interoperability between European automated clearing houses (
http://www.eacha.org).

2. Equens' CSM is also connected to DIAS (Greece), Iberpay
(Spain), ICBPI/Banca d'Italia (Italy), KIR (Poland), OeNB (Austria),
SECB (Switzerland), VocaLink (UK) and soon Deutsche Bundesbank
(Germany) and TransFond (Romania).

3. BORICA-BANKSERVICE AD has been successfully connected to
Deutsche Bundesbank's SEPA-Clearer system since December 2010.

ots Originaltext: BORICA?BANKSERVICE and Equens
Im Internet recherchierbar: http://www.presseportal.de

Contact:
For additional information on BORICA-BANKSERVICE AD, please
contact: Bogdan Stavrev, +359(2)9215-366 ; For additional information
on
Equens, please contact: Annemieke Lambregts, +31(0)30-283-50-27,
+31(0)650-21-30-91 ; Marcel Woutersen, +31(0)30-283-54-27,
+31(0)629-05-08-71