LONDON, January 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Direct Debit Limited, the payments-management software provider, saw impressive growth in demand for its PayCentre ( http://www.directdebit.com/downloads/Pay_Centre_eBrochure.pdf) platform in 2010. The company signed 54 new clients last year, including lucrative contracts with Unipart Merchandiseand Eazy Collect, a Direct Debit collection bureau.

Direct Debit Limited increased new business by 158% in 2010 and orders for PayDirect ( http://www.directdebit.com/products_and_services/software/pay_direct), the company's online bureau service, increased by 94%. Last year, also saw the company build strong relationships with four major high street banks, which enablesit to better understand the banks' clients and deliver effective software to them. During the same period, Direct Debit Limited's training academy gave its 600th Direct Debit course. The academy has now trained over 3,500 people.

ThePayCentre ( http://www.directdebit.com/downloads/Pay_Centre_eBrochure.pdf) platform automates and streamlines credit and debit card, Direct Debit and Direct Credit payments processes for businesses, public-sector organisations and charities, via a single user interface. With cost cutting and efficiency top of mind across all sectors, the modular payments-management platform has seen great take up, as companies look to reduce the administration burden associated with processing payments.

"2010 was a challenging period for companies across allindustries, so we are delighted to report such a successful year," said Paul Conway, Sales Director at Direct Debit Limited. "We pride ourselves on building strong relationships with our clients, banks and industry peers and look forward to continuing this in 2011. In fact, we will be announcing an exciting new partnership in the next couple of weeks."

Last year, Direct Debit Limited added several new modules to PayCentre (http://www.directdebit.com/downloads/Pay_Centre_eBrochure.pdf), includingone for processing Faster Payments and a module to support SEPA and SWIFT transactions. The company also added aHardware Security Module (HSM) fororganisations that process large numbers of transactionsand want to submit payment files to Bacs automatically.