For Immediate Release
P&H Solutions Adopts EPN STP 820 Standard To Facilitate Straight-Through-Processing for B2B Payments
Leading Cash Management Provider
Supports EPN’s Remittance Standard
New York, NY, April 12, 2005 – The Electronic Payments Network (EPN), the ACH business of The Clearing House Payments Company, today announced that P&H Solutions will adopt the EPN STP 820 remittance standard in an upcoming release of its Web Cash Manager Suite to facilitate straight-through-processing for business-to-business payments.
“The EPN STP 820 standard will strengthen Web Cash Manager by making it easier for clients to initiate payments and leverage the tools in the industry’s leading web-based banking system,” said Terry Monteith, Senior Vice President, Products, of P&H Solutions. “The EPN STP 820 remittance standard advances the industry’s strategic goal of straight-through-processing to increase business-to-business payments and reduce costs.”
Web Cash Manager allows financial institutions of all sizes to package products and services for different markets or individual customers from a single platform. Financial institutions can choose from more than 75 modules that cater to both large and small clients. The P&H Web Cash Manager Suite also provides an infrastructure for integrating other products and services offered by financial institutions.
EPN STP 820 rationalizes the complexity of the ANSI 820 payment standard by defining the minimum required data elements to be included with the payment. EPN STP 820 specifies up to 10 required data elements, with two elements – customer name and customer account number –as mandatory. If invoices are used, there are eight additional fields such as invoice number, gross invoice amount, and amount paid to be included with the electronic payment for each invoice being paid. Developed from extensive research and work with industry groups, software providers, banks and businesses, the EPN STP 820 standard is approved by ASC X12 F and supported by NACHA and the Association of Financial Professionals (AFP).
“P&H’s adoption of the EPN STP 820 standard will help more businesses initiate electronic payments and move away from checks,” said Rossana Salaris, Senior Vice President of The Clearing House Payments Company, responsible for EPN. “EPN is committed to taking a leadership role in developing industry-wide solutions that make electronic payments as easy as writing a check.”
The EPN STP 820 standard addresses one of the key obstacles in business-to-business payments: the lack of a single standard format for remittance information. The AFP Payments Advisory Group, which represents a broad cross-section of corporate treasury and finance professionals, has said the EPN STP 820 “appears to address key barriers to the efficient delivery of remittance information with electronic payments, if properly implemented.”
A Federal Reserve study showed that of the 3.9 billion business-to-business remittance payments each year, only 14% are executed electronically. Of these electronic payments only 32% could be posted automatically. This standard will dramatically increase the automatic reconciliation of electronic payments.
Copies of EPN’s research “Barriers to Electronic Payments” and the EPN STP 820 Implementation Guide are available on the EPN website at www.epaynetwork.com.
About P&H Solutions
Since its founding in 1983, P&H Solutions has continually focused on the needs of financial institutions and their customers. As a result of this strong commitment to helping financial institutions meet their strategic business banking objectives, P&H developed Web Cash Manager, the most robust application suite in the industry. With over 150 financial institutions in production with its Web Cash Manager Suite, P&H is the market leader in adding demonstrative value to the business banking relationship. Industry analyst Celent Communications has ranked P&H as the number one cash management vendor for each of the last three years. P&H customers include ABN Amro, AmSouth, Citibank, City National Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, PNC, Sovereign Bank, and Wells Fargo, as well as hundreds of credit unions, community banks, savings banks, and regional financial institutions. P&H Solutions is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts, with offices in nine other states. Additional information can be found at www.ph.com, or by calling 617-796-7700.
P&H and P&H Web Cash Manager Suite are trademarks of P&H Solutions, Inc.
About EPN and The Clearing House Payments Company
The Electronic Payments Network (www.epaynetwork.com), a payments business of The Clearing House Payments Company, is the only national private sector ACH operator in the United States. Its membership consists of over 1,600 commercial banks, credit unions and savings banks. EPN processed more than 3.4 billion payments in 2004. The Clearing House Payments Company (www.theclearinghouse.org) is a private-sector, global payment systems infrastructure that clears and settles more than 20 million payments for $1.5 trillion per day. The Clearing House manages payment services that span the entire spectrum of paper, paper-to-electronic, and electronic payments. For more information on The Clearing House, contact chip.savidge@theclearinghouse.org, (212) 613-9896, or Greg Berardi, greg@bluemarlinpartners.com, 415-239-7826.
