Our Experts
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Luc Belpaire
- product director, payments
- SunGard’s AvantGard Corporations business
- luc.belpaire@sungard.com
Luc Belpaire is responsible for product management of SunGard’s AvantGard payments solutions. He drives product strategy, product management and program management activities spanning all phases of the product life cycle – from inception of new and innovative solutions to ongoing product enhancements.
Prior to joining SunGard, Mr. Belpaire spent 11 years at Oracle working in various roles and geographies, including director of product strategy financial services in the applications division where he worked on defining a strategy around cash management and payments. He has a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Ghent, Belgium and an MBA from the Vlerick Management School in Belgium.
Commentary
As the SEPA initiative rolls out in Europe, we see corporations adopting the SEPA Credit Transfer instrument mostly because it is a facilitator to centralize their cash and treasury management operations in Shared Service Centers across Europe. It helps them to decrease the number of EUR bank accounts and build standard processes around payments and collections backed by central IT platforms.
Another emerging trend is the extension of payment factories to other areas such as account statement processing and direct debits (a collection instrument), making them more than just 'payment' factories. Direct debits (DD) are cheap collections instruments and help standardize and automate the collection process, significantly reducing operational costs, speeding up collections procedures and lowering days sales outstanding (DSO).
These trends that drive automation and centralization help corporations gain better visibility into their cash flows, and also help drive efficiencies through their financial supply chains.