Voca Payment Platform receives industry recognition for excellence

24 November 2006: The new Voca Payment Platform has fought off stiff competition to win three prestigious awards for excellence. Voca, the provider of payment services, won the awards for the successful delivery of its payment system, which went into live operation in July this year. Voca won the ‘Most Innovative Application of Technology’ and ‘Overall Excellence’ awards at the ifs/Capgemini Financial Innovation Awards 2006, and the ‘Outstanding Achievement’ award at the European Banking Technology Awards 2006. 

The Voca Payment Platform lies at the heart of the UK’s payment infrastructure, processing the nation’s salaries, direct debits and benefit payments. Voca’s in-house IT team undertook the ambitious development project to replace the company’s entire production infrastructure which on a peak day processes in excess of 80 million transactions. The project came to fruition in July 2006 on schedule and within budget, and the new Voca Payments Platform is recognised as the most modern, functionally rich payments system in Europe. It currently handles 15 per cent of Europe’s automated payments, and is well placed to take advantage of the new market opportunity arising from the implementation of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), in January 2008.

Richard Lowrie, chairman of judges at the ifs/Capgemini Financial Innovation Awards 2006, commented: “The Voca Payment Platform provides a critical service for financial institutions and was an enormous project to undertake whilst business continued as usual. The judges unanimously felt that this entry fulfilled the triple objectives of being innovative, encompassing change, and delivering excellence. It also provides a platform for the future – both known, such as SEPA, and as yet unknown. This can only be for the benefit of all stakeholders. Congratulations!”

Steve Grigg, chief operating officer at Voca said: “These awards are testament to the massive effort that went into the delivery of the programme undertaken to replace a system that is at the heart of payments for UK plc. Not only was it overhauled without missing a beat, but the new Voca Payment Platform is scaleable for the future. It can easily process new SEPA payments and has the capacity to process the entire European automated payments volume in under four hours. We’re really pleased that this success is being recognised across the IT and banking industries.”