Vebego benefits from smooth connection with IBAN Naam Check

Vebego is one of the largest family-owned companies in the Netherlands. Vebego owns several subsidiaries, which mainly focus on facility services and health care. Around 34,000 people work for Vebego in several countries around the world. “The Vebego Service Center is responsible for things like financial administration for 16 affiliated partners”, says Leon Hanssen. “Last year, I started working as Process Expert Procure to Pay.”

“You can imagine that a lot of invoices come in and out at the various Vebego subsidiaries”, says Leon. “We work with around 7,000 suppliers, for example. When we make payments to those companies, it’s of course important for the money to get to the right place. Unfortunately, the details in our files haven’t always been kept up-to-date over the past few years. Moreover, some banks don’t check the recipient’s name and account number when we pay an invoice; especially when it comes to batch payments. So we took two initiatives to improve that.”

The first activity was to optimize the master data, Leon explains: “With SurePay’s help, we conducted a check of the names on all the accounts in our database. Based on those results, we now conduct an extra check for the details that appeared to be incorrect. If necessary, we also ask the relevant supplier for confirmation.”

The second activity was to build in IBAN Naam Check, which was developed by Rabobank. This service helps companies check if the IBAN they’ve entered is correct, to prevent the money from being deposited to the wrong account. Leon: “I was familiar with IBAN Naam Check from my previous employer, so I was pleased to hear that Vebego also wanted to introduce it, and that I had the opportunity to contribute to the implementation.”

To implement IBAN Naam Check in its own system, Vebego utilized the knowledge and services of Rabobank partner Datastreams. Leon was pleased at the news. “Datastreams was our first point of contact, which helped the implementation go smoothly. The link with IBAN Naam Check was made via a URL based on an e-mail address, and after our users notified the Datastreams Support Desk, we were online within a day. It’s as easy as pie, but that’s largely thanks to the smooth collaboration between Datastreams, Rabobank and our colleagues at Vebego who helped make it happen.”

“Now we have exactly what we were looking for: when we enter a name and an IBAN number, we get an overview and can see whether we have a match. We also wanted to create a .pdf print of the overview, and Datastreams arranged it for us.” But as Leon explains, that has not solved all of Vebego’s challenges: “IBAN Naam Check doesn’t yet work for batch payments. So it’s our responsibility to ensure that data are submitted and entered correctly on the front end. Plus, foreign banks aren’t yet affiliated with SurePay. Since our company operates internationally, that’s a disadvantage for us. But I understand that SurePay is also working on that at the moment.”