First time I saw a “for Dummies” brochure, I found the expression a bit offensive. Even now, I thought twice whether to name this text “for Dummies” or “FINkers United ABCs”. But reading that first brochure I understood the value of it: having things explained, plain and simple, common language, without all the metaphors or exaggerated sales propaganda; having a concise, straight answer to the questions that can pop-up in anybody’s mind.

So that’s what I want do for FINkers United.

Chapter 1: General Aspects

What is FINkers United?

FINkers United® is an open source community for all financial thinkers’ enthusiasts – from IT developers to financial experts – gathered around the FinTP® Project.

PS: this also answers another question: where does the name come from? Well, from financial thinkers united.

What is FinTP?

FinTP is an open source financial transactions processing application meant to be used as an open platform in a strictly regulated market.

FinTP aims to push financial transactions interoperability forward – from the current message syntax standard layer towards transactions interpretation – thus attaining a higher semantic standardization layer.

What is the purpose of this community?

It’s to encourage creativity in the financial industry, to create an environment where ideas are seeded and brought to ripeness to the benefit of all. It is aimed at freeing people’s creativity and brains from reinventing the wheel, as it happens in a closed traditional environment, and allowing them to take advantage of all the benefits an open approach brings.

In fewer words, it aims to grow the FinTP application that Allevo has provided the code for through contributions at any level, from requirements to be implemented to various operating systems compatibility, support applications and so on.

Who can become a member?

Anyone who has an interest in this area, likes the idea, is passionate about developing in open source or is keen in taking part in building an innovative product may become a member. All you need to do is register on www.fintp.org. Actually, there is no community if it does not have purpose and this is given by its members.

All of you are welcome to our community, to use our code, to praise or criticize us, and give us feedback. Users who continue to engage with the project and its community will often become more and more involved. Such users may find themselves becoming contributors.

What is a contributor?

Contributors are community members who wish to take part in concrete ways in the community running. Their contributions can take many forms, but all are to be submitted as patches that should be validated by committers or project maintainers.

The types of contributors are detailed in Chapter 2: Structures and roles, together with how you can contribute, how your role can grow in the community and what’s higher up the chain.

If I do not have technical skills, could I still be part of it?

But of course you can. Any idea is welcome and any member’s knowledge is valuable to the community. For example, you might have an idea of a feature or new project you think is useful and worth adding over FinTP.

You can also contribute by sharing your expertise in discussions on the Forum, the designated space for all debates within the community. All contributions will be acknowledged and thanked for.  

Oh, but where can I find the code?

We used the GitHub portal as the repository for the FinTP source code. But you can also find the binaries on the community’s web page, www.fintp.org

It sounds interesting. Where can I read more about this?

www.fintp.org, the community’s portal. You can read about governance, structure and roles, meritocracy, voting, code of conduct and so on. And there are a lot of topics that might interest you on the forum.

Stay tuned for the following chapters of FINkers United for Dummies. We will explain the structure of the community, how exactly you can contribute, the roles you can have and of course, how the community really works, in terms of processes, activities and teamwork.

by Andrei Dutescu

As already known, as of 1 August 2014 (six months transitional period from 1 February 2014), bulk payments throughout Europe will have to be handled in accordance with the regulations for SEPA Credit Transfers and SEPA Direct Debits.

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) refers to an economic area comprising well over 500 million citizens and some 20 million businesses and institutions. With SEPA, they are able now to pay all over extended Euro zone just as quickly, securely and conveniently as they do at national level .a either by a SEPA Credit Transfer or by a SEPA Direct Debit.

In the financial institution space SEPA schemas and ISO20022 are already known and widely implemented. But SEPA is not only about bank-to-bank transactions, corporates also have to comply. In fact looking back to the starting point of the SEPA initiative in 2004, SEPA was referring to the entire life-cycle from ordering customer to beneficiary:

“An area where citizens, companies and others will be able to make and receive payments in euro, within Europe, whether between or within national boundaries under the same basic conditions, rights and obligations, regardless of their location.” – European Payments Council Roadmap.

Having these facts on the table, the race to reach SEPA compliance is on, yet many companies/corporates have barely begun, never mind having fully SEPA-compliant payments in place, for corporate-to-bank connectivity.

Migrating to SEPA brings many different challenges for a corporate. Supporting the right data formats is one. Corporates need to check whether their systems are capable of processing the necessary SEPA formats (cash management – CAMT and payments initiation – PAIN messages).

Taking this into consideration and also over a decade expertise in payment processing landscape, Allevo can assist reaching the SEPA deadline, no matter if you are a corporate or a bank.

Allevo offer for SEPA compliance comprises the SEPAReady application for financial transaction processing and business & technical expertise. Looking only at the SEPA corporate-to-bank space, the application feature C2B ensures the processing of EUR payment initiation instructions compliant with SEPA rules and schemes, in the corporate-to-bank environment.

From solution’s point of view, C2B feature addresses separately the corporate-to-bank environment, offering 2 distinct applications: 1) for Corporates 2) for Banks.

1) C2B feature for Corporates ensures the processing of EUR payment initiation instructions for corporates, corresponding to the business flows in relation with their bank, in compliance with SEPA regulation and schemes.

C2B feature allows corporates to generate payments SEPA compliant. Payments will be delivered to the bank / Payment Service Providers (PSP’s) in the SEPA ISO20022 format (payment initiation messages – PAIN), enabling an easy interface of the corporate with the bank and offering advantages for both. Lower operating costs and simplified payments are just some of the advantages this solution provides for a corporate client.

Companies and institutions can use SEPA migration as an opportunity to optimize their cash and treasury management processes and structures.

2) C2B feature for Banks ensures the processing of Euro payment initiation instructions corresponding to the business flows in relation with their corporate clients.

C2B feature allows banks to receive SEPA compliant payment initiation requests from their corporate customers. The messages received are unpacked from the SEPA ISO20022 format in individual transactions and prepared to be processed by the bank’s Back Office applications.

From the bank’s point of view, C2B feature represents an easy way to implement a tool which ensures that the bank can receive SEPA compliant instructions from its corporate clients. C2B is increasing the efficiency of back office processes.

So far, good progress has been achieved with regard to creating SEPA awareness in the corporate sector, but for some companies, migration projects still must get under way and efforts must be intensified.

After 1 August 2014, there will be no further transitional period and everybody will have to use the SEPA standard, otherwise they risk refusal of transfers by payment service providers, who will have to refuse further processing of payments that are not delivered to them in the right technical format after the deadline applicable in the euro area.

Therefore, if you are a bank and you are SEPA compliant in relation with your correspondent banks or in relation with your CSM, but you cannot process SEPA instructions in relation with your corporate customers, there is a simple thing to do, just contact us and we will deliver exactly that component of our solution that you need, C2B Feature for Banks.

If you, as a bank, are fully SEPA compliant already (in relation with correspondent banks/CSM and your corporate clients), but some of your corporate clients are not ready for SEPA yet, you may help your customers by recommending our proven component C2B Feature for Corporates, which will help them become SEPA compliant in relation with their bank.

We are here to help you accommodate the market regulations and standards as fast and efficient as possible, so act now!