EBA Clearing has performed the first test transaction between two banks of the MyBank online payment scheme at the annual EBAday event in Edinburgh.
The live test transaction between France's BRED Banque Populaire and Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari Italiane (ICBPI) comes ahead of a four-month technical pilot trial of the system, commencing early next month.
The company first outlined its MyBank plans to banks at the annual EBADay conference in Madrid last year. The idea is to create a pan-European electronic payments service for online shopping, enabling buyers and sellers to complete transactions through their e-banking portals.
The initiative comes at a timely moment, with both the European Commission and consumer bodies recently calling for the introduction of easier pan-European e-payments.
EBA Clearing has gathered considerable support for the scheme, which will be tested at both national and cross-border level by banks and other payment service providers, merchants, customers, integrators and routing service providers.
Giorgio Ferrero, chairman of EBA Clearing, comments: "Pioneering a pan-European e-payment solution is both a visionary and a cost-conscious choice. We look forward to working with the MyBank pilot participants on the fine-tuning of the solution and its subsequent roll-out, which will contribute a major milestone to the creation of e-Sepa."
The fully-functioning MyBank service is expected to go into live production for consumer transactions from "early 2013", he says.
John Broxis, Step2 director of EBA Clearing talks exclusively about the project to EBAdayTV, live from Edinburgh on the opening day of the annual European payments event.