EBA CLEARING white paper addresses how to ensure smooth take-off for euro instant payments

EBA CLEARING issued today a white paper on how to ensure a smooth take-off for euro instant payments across Europe. The paper presents key factors for a successful ramp-up of real-time payments, such as payment certainty and reach, and explains how these can be supported at an infrastructure level.

To this effect, the publication also provides insights into the specific choices EBA CLEARING has made, in co-operation with its user community, in the development and implementation of its instant payment infrastructure system RT1.

“The speed of the instant payment uptake across Europe is difficult to predict for the next few years, but I believe we all agree that there are a number of success drivers that can significantly boost ramp-up,”

said Hays Littlejohn, Chief Executive Officer of EBA CLEARING.

“During our project work with payment service providers from all over Europe, we focussed on the most crucial factors and strove to find optimal ways of supporting them in the infrastructure layer.

With this white paper, we would like to contribute to the overall effort required for the industry-wide introduction of instant payments by sharing with all stakeholders both our general findings and information about the concrete solutions we have developed in response.”

“At infrastructure level, ease of access is key and an instant payment system needs flexible participation options. Its users should, for example, be able to rely on their trusted providers, which can help them handle the operational challenges that real-time payments entail,” 

said Erwin Kulk, Head of Service Development and Management, EBA CLEARING.

“System reliability is part of this story too, as are efficient liquidity management mechanisms. Recognising this, we have, for instance, included automated tools and reports in our RT1 solution to make the system as liquidity-efficient as possible. And we will further work with our users on adapting this toolbox to any evolving requirements that the ramp-up may bring. But our main focus at this stage obviously is to prepare for the go-live of the service in November with the close to 30 future users that are lined up for 2017.”

Together with 39 funding institutions, EBA CLEARING has been developing and implementing since April 2016 a pan-European infrastructure platform providing a real-time payment processing facility around the clock on any day of the year.

The RT1 service of EBA CLEARING is scheduled to go live in November 2017 on the launch date of the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) Scheme of the European Payments Council.

Account-servicing payment service providers (AS-PSPs) from all over Europe will be able to use this highly flexible solution for any payment product in euro that will be fully compliant with the instant payment scheme (“SCT Inst Scheme”) of the European Payments Council (EPC) and in line with the ISO 20022 global messaging standards for real-time payments.

Ensuring a smooth take-off for euro instant payments: A white paper on pan-European infrastructure considerations can be downloaded here.