SWIFTNet Instant to provide access to EBA CLEARINGs RT1 system

The SWIFT solution will address all RT1 customer requirements, including instant messaging, file transfers and a browse solution. RT1 will provide the European payments industry with a pan-European infrastructure platform for real-time payments in euro from day one of the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer Scheme. It is expected to see close to 30 joiners for the go-live on 21 November 2017 and more than 50 users in the system by mid-2018.

SWIFT’s instant payments solution is designed to work anywhere in Europe and around the world, enabling SWIFT customers to connect seamlessly to multiple instant payment clearing and settlement mechanisms. For the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), SWIFT has already agreed to offer connectivity to EBA CLEARING’s RT1 system and to the Eurosystem’s TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) platform. As announced in June, SWIFT will support delivery of the future Eurosystem vision of a single gateway to Eurosystem market Infrastructure services and access to other clearing and settlement mechanisms.

The pan-European infrastructure platform RT1 will be used for the 24/7 settlement of real-time payments in line with the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) Scheme of the European Payments Council (EPC). Together with 39 funding institutions, EBA CLEARING has been developing and implementing RT1 since April 2016. The objective was to provide payment service providers across SEPA with a real-time payment processing facility operating around the clock on any day of the year. RT1 is scheduled to go live on 21 November 2017.

RT1 will be open to any account-servicing payment provider (AS-PSP) adhering to the EPC SCT Inst Scheme. The platform has been conceived as a network-agnostic system, meaning that users can rely on different network solutions, provided they have been introduced at platform and user level in line with the necessary security requirements.

The availability of SWIFTNet Instant for connecting to RT1 adds another chapter to the partnership between SWIFT and EBA CLEARING, which dates back to the launch of EURO1, in January 1999; SWIFT provides the messaging layer and operates the settlement system on behalf of EBA CLEARING. SWIFT also provides the messaging layer to STEP2, the pan-European Automated Clearing House, which processes euro retail payments, and links the system with Target2 for liquidity transfers.