EBICS as a SaaS – EBICS in the cloud

Whether for financial institutions, corporate customers, payment service providers or Internet service providers: EBICS is used in all these areas in Europe today. Why is that? On one hand, EBICS is geared towards the mass payments that are common in corporate banking, and on the other hand, EBICS is established as an e-banking standard in Europe. 

 

I need EBICS connectivity – do I have to operate EBICS myself? 

 All the EBICS market participants have one thing in common: their core business is usually not primarily in the operation and handling of the EBICS communication, but, for example, in the supply and sale of banking products, payment services and in the Internet business. The communication needs to work, and you want to rely on a standard, so that you do not have to build and maintain your own connection solutions with each partner.  

In order to be able to concentrate fully on the core business, it might be interesting to think about the "software as a service" concept for all services related to EBICS. There are different approaches for the EBICS services to be operated in the cloud. Service users may be able to save a lot of money and thus benefit from greater flexibility because an EBICS solution can be introduced faster and can be expanded or reduced more easily.   

Financial institutions with a smaller number of potential EBICS customers in particular shy away from the high initial costs of installing and operating an EBICS bank server themselves. Is this effort and its cost worthwhile for the initial few, perhaps 50 – 100 corporate customers?

EBICS in the cloud

So why operate the service yourself? Why not hire a service provider who has been involved in the EBICS business from the very beginning and thus has mastered all its facets?
Buying a complete EBICS bank server as a service at low cost, that would be it. The best way to do this is to use a web-based corporate customer portal, so that customers can enjoy the new service quickly and without much effort. Both financial institutions and corporate customers can then use these services.

EBICS is not a service that is only about gaining a decisive advantage in competition with other financial institutions. Offering EBICS and the corresponding payment services is one of the "must-haves" of a financial institution. So why not share the initial cost with others and use a more cost-effective service in the cloud?

EBICS in the cloud: perhaps a worthwhile course of action. Right?

Author: Michael Lembcke