A working group within the Italian Banking Association has been formed to look at migrating domestic payments onto the Step2 system, which was originally designed as a pan-European automated clearing house (ACH) for cross-border payments.
The Italian banks have confirmed their intention to progressively migrate to STEP2 within the framework of the single European payments area (SEPA) concentric model, as envisaged in the 2002 white paper from the European Payments Council (EPC).
"We are very delighted at the co-operation of the Italian banks," says Gilbert Lichter, CEO of EBA Clearing. "The design of Step2 enables a rapid migration of a domestic community's payments to the pan-European ACH."
EBA says it has signed up 800 indirect and 31 direct participants to Step2, with a further 18 banks lined up to join the platform in November.