XML validation service

See You in EBAday

2012-05-07

XMLdation will attend as an exhibitor at the EBAday on May 15^th and 16^th 2012.

We would like to meet You there to discuss XMLdation Services:

To suggest a convenient time for meeting, please send e-mail to Antti.Kela@xmldation.com

Looking forward to meeting You in Edinburgh!

Our seminar on June 19th in Brussels

2012-04-05

The new date is on Tuesday, 19th of June, starting at 1 pm in Brussels.

Keynote Speakers are :

Ms. Sari Essayah, MEP and Rapporteur on SEPA end-date regulation

Mr. Harri Rantanen, Co-Convener CGI Group and Manager, Global Formats and Standards, SEB

The seminar will focus on:

SEPA end-date regulation
ISO 20022 Common Global Implementation initiative

To participate, please send an e-mail to info at xmldation.com.

Seminar for Software Developers and Integrators on April 19th in Helsinki

2012-03-21

XMLdation will host a seminar for software developers and integrators on April 19th at 8.30 am in Helsinki.

To participate, please send an e-mail to info at xmldation.com.

XMLdation as Exhibitor in International Payment Summit (IPS) 2012 London in March

2012-02-12

Finland's Successful Migration to SEPA Credit Transfers

2012-01-27

Finland successfully completed its migration to the single euro payments area (SEPA) Credit Transfer (SCT) in October 2011. What is the secret of its success?

Finland is one of the forerunners in the single euro payments area (SEPA) migration. It successfully migrated to SEPA in credit transfers already by the end of October 2011. Domestic credit transfers have become SEPA credit transfers and legacy domestic payment file standards have been replaced by the ISO 20022 standard. By the end date altogether 90% of companies had concluded the migration. The banks have temporary solutions with the remaining 10%.

Several factors contributed to the successful migration: early start for the process, readiness to accept common standard solutions and open communication.

"The Finnish community has now gone through the migration and is waiting for other communities, banks and corporations to complete. Of course the limited use of direct debits allowed us to concentrate on credit transfers. We can focus on the SDD [SEPA Direct Debits] and advance e-invoicing services in the next phases. For international SEPA transactions, we now need to identify areas causing pains for traffic from or to other SEPA countries," said Nordea's SEPA expert and senior vice president (SVP) Erkki Poutiainen.

Inkeri Tolvanen, project manager for the national SEPA migration project at Federation of Finnish Financial Services (FFFS), stresses also the cost savings. "A short transition period to SEPA means also cost savings to all parties, as the need to maintain both old and new standards is limited," Tolvanen states.

Readiness to Common Standards a Success Factor

The migration process started early in Finland - in the mid-2000s. The first national migration plan was created in 2008 setting the end date to 2010. Due to challenges in technical implementation from both the banks' and companies' side, the end date was set for the end of October 2011.

The national SEPA migration project was organised at the FFFS. Tolvanen explains that all banks that are active in domestic payment traffic in Finland and members of the FFFS and therefore worked together in the migration project.

According to Poutiainen, the breakthrough in migration was led by the large public administration entities in 2010. However, the real mass migration took place during 2011.

Finland's readiness to common standard solutions and multi-bank standards was one of the key success factors in addition to early start. "Moving into global standards was regarded by many to balance with benefits of the cost-side of investing in a change. Also we saw many corporations to connect the SEPA changes into much more profound process redesign projects where wider-range of benefits could be combined to same change effort," says Poutiainen.

Tolvanen also stresses the importance of communications in succeeding with the migration: "Communication has proved to be an important key to success. The migration has required lots of work and dialogue between the banks, banking software vendors and the corporate sector. National stakeholder forum has played a major role in this dialogue."

Challenges with the Schedule

The process did not proceed merely smoothly. SEPA changes were initially seen as mainly compliance changes with minimum approach, and few banks really invested in a total infrastructure change.

"It was easier to agree on contents than implementing the changes within the same time schedules. This was a disappointment to multi-banking customers and software providers. Also some process-related differences in details caused similar problems," Poutiainen says.

Facilitating the Process

The migration would have not succeeded without supporting vendor companies. "Banking software providers and some integrator service providers were proactive, while many ERP [enterprise resource planning] providers came in quite late with their SEPA versions. The support facilities for testing, provided by companies such as XMLdation, were extremely helpful," Poutiainen says.

According to Tolvanen, it was essential for bigger corporations to have enough detailed information of the change for their own projects, and that their ERP vendors and bank connection software providers implemented the necessary changes in time.

"It was also crucial that necessary support was available from both their bank and the software providers. For small companies it was important to make the change to SEPA payments as simple and easy as possible," Tolvanen describes.

XMLdation is specialised in testing payment-related XML. Chief executive officer (CEO) Juha Keski-Nisula stresses the importance preparation. The company helped its customers in multiple ways. One important tool has been the wiki database, which XMLdation has offered to its customers.

"Testing is very important in processes like migration to the SEPA. Even small errors can ruin the entire process. When the testing and training are done properly, this speeds up the projects and brings cost savings," Keski-Nisula says.

Keski-Nisula emphasises that testing should be seen as a continuous process, not a one-time event. From the business point-of-view Keski-Nisula sees tremendous possibilities: "SEPA is only one part of a larger XML revolution. Changes in the technical standards will open an entirely new set of opportunities for ERP vendors."

Figure 1: SEPA: Part of a Larger XML Revolution

(The above article was written by CEO Juha Keski-Nisula, XMLdation and published in GT News on January 3rd, 2012.)

Case Samlink: Remarkable Savings in Time

2011-11-30

Read whole story here!

Case YIT: Read how YIT benefits XMLdation

2011-10-31

Read whole story here

SEPA Tightens Competition Between the Banks

2011-10-18


This article is translated from Tietoviikko's article, which was published on October 14th, 2011.

SEPA Tightens Competition Between the Banks

European Parliament is expected to vote on the end dates for the technical standards of the Single Euro Payment Area in December^(*.

The Single European Payments Area, SEPA, is tightening competition between banks – especially in Central Europe. This might cause new mergers in the banking sector, believes MEP Sari Essayah from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. This Committee has been preparing the SEPA issue at the Parliament.

“SEPA will tighten competition – especially in the areas of overcapacity, such as in Germany. In the long run, this should decrease prices in both the private and company sectors. The Commission has estimated savings of altogether 100 to 300 billion euros during six years as a result of unifying systems”, Essayah describes.

Furthermore, Essayah believes that mergers might be seen in the banking sector. In addition, SEPA will decrease the need for personnel dealing with payment traffic in such European countries, where processes have not yet been automated.

Also Head of Cash Management, Marjut Pale, from YIT believes that SEPA will change the banking sector.

“Quality will be emphasized in addition to price. I believe that there will be strong banks specializing in payment traffic”, Pale predicts.

Nordea finds the changes positive, although there will be competition in the banking sectors.

“No one can deny the benefits. If we resisted this, we would resist economic development. We succeed, when our customers’ business is blooming”, states SEPA expert and Senior Vice President Erkki Poutiainen from Nordea.

Voting Aimed for December ^(*

In order for it to be efficient, SEPA requires similar standards across the payment area related to credit transfers and direct debits. All service providers are required to use common standards (IBAN, BIC and ISO 20022 XML).

Again, this is a current issue since the Commission, Council and Parliament have started to negotiate in September regarding the final end dates to unify the technical standards. The current aim is that the Parliament will vote in December ^(*. Several issues are at stake: what will be the end date and will credit transfers and direct debits have a separate end date? The aim is to force banks to use the same standards from the beginning of the year 2013 or 2014 – depending on the final content of the law and some exceptions.

In Finland, both banks and companies will be ready for SEPA already by the end of year 2011. This is based on the national transition plan that requires them to be SEPA-compliant regarding to credit transfers in 2011. Credit transfers account for some 90% of payment transactions in Finland. The rest are direct debits.

“Banks have been postponing to be compliant with the requirements in many countries. This harms those countries and banks that have proceeded faster than the others. Now, end dates will be set for the SEPA transition”, Essayah states.

SEPA to Decrease Costs

SEPA will decrease costs and increase efficiency of the companies, as companies no longer will have to keep accounts in several countries. The number of both banks and accounts can be decreased. During the transition, the companies have to update their IT related to payment and accounting compliant with the SEPA.

“Naturally, there will be costs involved in this transition phase, as all the data has to be transferred into XML format. However, in the long run, companies will get more benefits , states the Head of Cash Management, Marjut Pale, from YIT.
YIT started to renew its system for SEPA among the first ones in Finland – already in 2009. Today, all the payments are SEPA compliant.
“The change will decrease costs in the long run. The change will ease the follow-up of outgoing and incoming money. With improved surveillance, all unnecessary penalty fees will be vanished, Pale states.

All Payment Material in XML format

One of the major challenges related to SEPA is changing all material to XML format. Head of Cash Management, Marjut Pale, from YIT states that the change has created new service providers into the field.

One of the new service providers is XMLdation, which is specialized in testing payment-related XML.

“We test our outgoing payment traffic with XMLdation’s Validation Service. We immediately know in case the material has an error. The testing times get shorter, costs are saved and problems eased”, Pale says.

The CEO of XMLdation, Juha Keski-Nisula, describes that XML will be the world-wide language for payments.

“XML is future. In Finland, the transition has proceeded well. However, many countries are lacking behind”, Keski-Nisula says.


*)In Tietoviikko's article the estimate for the vote was November. However,
the updated estimate is December.

Test our new E2E Flow visualization tool

2011-10-05

Test our new E2E Flow visualization tool
Now also Sepa Direct Debit.
Any comments are welcome!

Test our New Credit Transfer flow

2011-09-26

Do you want to see the visual flow chart credit transfer - from purchase to payment? See and experience the flow chart beta- version yourself here.

Just click e-invoice and follow the flow.

Any feedback, ideas and comments are valuable and welcome.

This visual simulator has developed due to our customers requirments.

XMLdation News September 2011

2011-09-26

XMLdation.com News - September 2011 http://t.co/oRW5ykut

DnB NOR and XMLdation starts cooperation

2011-06-30

DnB NOR and XMLdation starts cooperation. DnB NOR is our verfied partner.
Validation pipes that have been added in our Validator

Finland specific validation pipes:

SEPA Credit Transfer with AOS2
XML Cross-Border common
XML Cross-Border Urgent
XML Cross-Border Cheque
XML Cross-Border Intraday with INTC 8
XML Cross-Border with codes TREA and CORT
XML Request for Transfer
Finvoice 1.2
Finvoice 1.3

General DnB NOR

SEPA Salary
SEPA Credit Transfer (structured /unstructured)
SEPA Credit Transfer Urgent

XMLdation News June 2011

2011-06-29

Our newsletter can read here

XMLdation News May 2011

2011-05-24

See our news letter http://conta.cc/kgp7uO

E2E Simulator is launched

2011-04-08

We proudly announced that the first release of XMLdation End to End Simulator has been launched.
E2E simulator is a servcice for integrators and software vendors than developes and implements banks' incoming messages as camt.054, camt.053, camt.052 and pain.002.
Contact juha.keski-nisula [@] xmldation.com for more information.

Swedbank Finland is availabe now in Webstore

2011-04-06

Swedbank Finland's validation pipes are now availabe in Webstore. You can buy 7, 14 or 28 days user licenses.

Swedbank Finland and XMLdation in cooperation

2011-04-01

XMLdation XML Validator validates Swedbank Finland's SEPA Credit Transfers, SEPA Credit Transfer with AOS2, SEPA Salaries and Cross-Border Payments.

XMLdation's Webinar

2011-01-09

Join our webinar every Friday at 14.00 CET. Webinar is free but we reserve right to limit number of participant to keep webinar as flexible as possible.
Welcome to join

Partnership with Samlink

2010-11-11

XMLdation and Samlink have agreed to cooperate on the XML testing and validation services.
Samlink is our verified partner.
Samlink's Bank customers are Aktia, Svenska Handelsbanken (Finland), Saving-banks, local co-operation banks and Itella IPS.

Samlink's bank customers materials can be validated in our Validator. Validation pipes (Schemas) can bought via our Webstore.

Partnership with Sampo Bank

2010-09-16

XMLdation and Sampo Bank have agreed to cooperate on the XML testing and validation services.
We also added Sampo Bank's validation pipes in our webstore. There are ten different validation pipes for different services that Sampo Bank offer E.g. SEPA Credit Transfer, SEPA salaries, XML cross-border etc.

XMLdation and EBAday 2010

2010-05-07

XMLdation participate EBAday 2010. Contact juha [ a] xmldation.com to reserve one-to-one demo.

New partner in Brussels

2010-04-01

XMLdation has started representative partnership with Mr. Vee H. Khong in Brussels.
Mr Khong can be reached via email or phone. He has long experience from SWIFT.

XMLdation is now SWIFT Registered Partner

2010-03-09

XMLdation is now SWIFT's Registered Partner. Collabaration with SWIFT will support our pruduct and strategy development.

Microsoft BizSpark

2010-03-03

XMLdation joined Microsoft's BizSpark program for promising start-up companies.
WIth BizSpark we could develop new services and features to our XML validation service.
In future it will support also our business development.

The program's lenght is three years.

Exhibitor International Payment Summit IPS2010

2010-02-19

Welcome to see XMLdation's XML validation service demo in London 8-10. March. We are presenting IPS2010

Web Store is open

2009-11-12

We proudly present our B2B web store. You can open license to our XML validation service. In the first phase we offer Nordea's schemas, but we will soon add more banks and services.

Wiki is updated

2009-11-03

Please, check our updated wiki. And please give some feedback,
Juha

Thanks

2009-10-28

Thank you for all that dropped in our booth,
and those who didnt see it, you can see our stand below. It is small, but size does not matter.

You can find our material from eurofinance from xmldation.com/eurofinance09

XMLdation in Nordea's Newsletter to software vendors

2009-10-09

Nordea Bank Finland announced in Nordea newsletter for Software Vendors (9.October). … We have used and tested XML validation-service, published by XMLdation.com Ltd. Nordea’s XML- payment files can be tested by XMLdation–service....

XMLdation supports and tests currently Nordea's

SEPA Credit Transfer
SEPA Credit Transfer AOS2
SEPA Salary
Cross-Border Payments
Finish Urgent Payments

XMLdation is validating also others banks XML paymnet related files.

( Citation from Finnish translated by Juha )

XMLdation will participate to Eurofinance 09

2009-10-07

We will be in Copenhagen Eurofinance09 21-23. October. Visit our stand and if you want a scheculde appointment with us, please send a email to me. juha [a] xmldation.com.

Regards
Juha

XMLdation.com is open

2009-10-05

XMLdation.com is pioneer of XML validation services offered to banks, software vendors and integrators.
With XMLdation-service XML migration project can speed up even 25%. Our automated testing tool has been developed in co-operation with Finnish banks.
Due to our validator structure an XML migration project can be done as a scrum project.

Join our mailing list and/or tweet us!

For more information contact us sales [at] XMLdation.com.