The European Central Bank (ECB) has awarded a tender to Italian payment processor SIA and telco Colt for the provision of connectivity services to the Eurosystem market infrastructures.
The completion of the tender process is the latest step in the ECB's aim to provide large financial institutions within the Eurosystem with a single point of access to the ECB's various settlement and payment services, otherwise known as the Eurosystem Single Market Infrastructure Gateway (ESMIG).
The ECB services on the platform include securities settlement utility Target2Securities (T2S), instant payments settlement service TIPS, the Eurosystem Collateral Management System as well as other services and applications that could be developed in the future,
The type of institutions that will be connected include central and commercial banks as well as central securities depositories, clearing houses and payment processors.
The ten year concession granted to SIA and Colt is the continuation of a contract first awarded to the two service providers, along with Swift, by the ECB back in 2012
The latest tender award was welcomed by SIA chief executive Nicola Cordone. "This award for ESMIG is very important because, for the first time in Europe, all financial institutions have the chance to select the best technological solution in a framework of free competition with considerable benefits in terms of costs and efficiency, and contributes to strengthening cybersecurity and the resilience of strategically important systems.”