What happened 45 years ago?
Directive 78/932/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to head restraints in motor vehicles was published on 20 November 1978. This was the first time that there were standardised minimum requirements for this in the European Union.
In 1978, Apple launched the “Apple II”, one of the first successful home computers with a 1 MHz CPU and 4 KB RAM. It was the first computer with a colour display.
Computers of all sizes also found their way into banks and large companies, although “remote data transmission” was still very much in its infancy.
Data was exchanged by courier with magnetic tapes and only gradually by floppy discs. 
What else happened: the CPG was established!
The rapid development in electronic data processing prompted the founders of our company to establish CPG Computer-Peripherie-Geräte Handelsgesellschaft mbH on 20 November 1978. The aim was to “trade in, hire, broker and maintain computer peripheral equipment and data processing systems, including security equipment, as well as provide consultancy services”.
Incidentally, the fax service was not officially introduced by Deutsche Bundespost until a year later in 1979.
From Hardware to Software thanks to SEPA
25 years ago, the company was renamed
CPG Consulting Project Group for Data and Finance Systems GmbH, clearly reflecting the changing spirit of the times and the advent of Denglish. The introduction of
SEPA gradually turned the hardware-orientated CPG into a software company with a strong focus on payment transactions. Data transmission in German interbank payment transactions is now preferably carried out with
EBICS and internationally via
SWIFT. Banks and local authorities primarily look to CPG for “SEPA software” to connect to the clearing system of the
Deutsche Bundesbank for the SEPA message formats SCT, SDD, SVV and SCC, as well as the house bank procedure (
HBV). Processing is based on ISO 20022, which is regarded worldwide as the most future-proof message format in the banking sector. Many clearing systems have already switched to the new standard or are planning to migrate, and SWIFT will also be fully migrated by 2025.
CPG becomes part of the ITP Group
In 2018, CPG became part of the
ITP Group and
Dr Martin Berger was appointed as the new Managing Director. His mission is to master the growing tasks in software development efficiently and reliably with the proven team. For a SEPA software solution, it is not only regulation, such as SEPA Instant Payments, SEPA Request to Pay and OCT, but also technical innovations such as cloud computing that are driving development. CPG’s SEPA software is now available in all relevant application environments.
CPG today stands for Clearing Payments Global
Today, the company operates under the name CPG Finance Systems GmbH as part of the ITP Group and focuses on the innovations and dynamics of payment transactions under the slogan CPG –
clearing
payments
global. CPG’s existing and new customers value reliability, flexibility and efficiency, but with the digital euro, blockchain technology and generative AI, other influencing factors for future development are already clear. We will see what interpretation CPG gets in the next evolutionary cycle. We are working on it…
