EBA Clearing says that close to 40 financial institutions have committed to supporting and funding the development and installation of its pan-European instant payments platform for transactions in the Single Euro Payments Area.
Owned by 53 of the major banks operating in Europe, EBA Clearing says the funding institutions will be involved in shaping the system design, functionality and interface specifications. The future infrastructure service is scheduled to be live in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Erkki Poutiainen, chairman of EBA Clearing says: “Based on this support, the EBA Clearing Board has formally kicked off this development and implementation project. We now look forward to bringing our instant payment solution to life with the active contribution of the funding banks, for the benefit of the future user community and its customers.”
The new platform is planned to be in line with ISO 20022 messaging standards and fully compliant with the SCTInst Scheme that is currently being created by the European Payments Council. Operating around the clock, the instant payments service will be available to payment service providers (PSP) across the EU.
Hays Littlejohn, CEO of EBA Clearing says: “Many more PSPs have already expressed their interest in using our service. We plan to make available the specifications for connecting to the new infrastructure to all interested institutions and other stakeholders this summer. This should give all future users that plan to go live when the EPC scheme is launched sufficient time to be able to connect to our system from the start.”
The move to real-time payments will be a key theme at this year's EBAday, the European payments and transaction banking conference organised by Finextra and the EBA. The two-day conference will play host to 1000 banking professionals and 45 exhibitors at the MiCo - Milano Congressi on 7-8 June.