EACT Newsletter Payment | andy

PAYMENTS

In November last year the European Payments Council published the rules for a new credit transfer scheme for instant payments. The payment scheme is now in its implementation phase and will become available for use as of 21 November 2017. It is not mandatory for payment service providers to offer instant payments as adherence is voluntary.

The main aspects of the new payment scheme are:

• applicable for euro transactions between adhering payment services providers in the SEPA area
• a maximum transferable amount of 15,000 euros (a higher amount could be agreed between individual participating payment service providers)
• available 24 hours a day on all calendar days of the year
• a maximum execution time of ten seconds after which the funds need to be made available to the beneficiary

It is not yet clear how widely this service would be offered by payment service providers, as the adherence process has just opened.