EBA CLEARING and IBERPAY report successful start of link between IBERPAY and STEP2 platforms

EBA CLEARING and IBERPAY reported today a successful start of the link between IBERPAY and the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) Service on the STEP2 platform. More than 1,500 SEPA Credit Transfers with a total value of 7 million euros are exchanged daily via the link between IBERPAY and EBA CLEARING’s PE-ACH platform since the launch of the SEPA Credit Transfer Scheme.

The link between IBERPAY and STEP2 was put in place for the start of SEPA on 28th January 2008 and allows financial institutions that are participating in the IBERPAY system to exchange SEPA payments with banks in 31 European countries. Financial institutions using this link have the choice to either settle their obligations themselves or to appoint another bank as their settlement bank.

“Through IBERPAY’s cooperation with EBA CLEARING, our users benefit from an efficient solution for sending and receiving SEPA payments to and from financial institutions in the Single Euro Payments Area. Their technical connection to STEP2 was established by IBERPAY, which means that they did not have to undertake any major changes or switchovers in order to get connected to the new SEPA infrastructure. By hosting this link to the STEP2 platform, we enable our institutions to send all their payments through one single channel and profit from our services and support in dealing with both national and intra-European transactions,” said Enrique Silva, Chairman of the Board of IBERPAY.

“EBA CLEARING is very pleased to have established interoperability with IBERPAY and looks forward to the cooperation with the key player in the Spanish payment infrastructure market and its user institutions. The link extends the reach of financial institutions throughout SEPA and will certainly continue to see a significant increase in volumes in the upcoming months as the SEPA payment instruments are becoming more popular throughout Europe,” said Gilbert Lichter, Chief Executive Officer, EBA CLEARING.

The IBERPAY-STEP2 link allows IBERPAY users to benefit from EBA CLEARING’s position as a pan-European ACH (PE-ACH) for SEPA payments in 31 European countries. Conversely, the link supports the reach of STEP2 in Spain. So far, EBA CLEARING has established interoperability between STEP2 and local platforms in 12 SEPA countries.