Instant Payment Systems To Deliver 24/7 Cross-Border Processing
Summary
Cross-border payments destined for Europe can now reach beneficiaries in seconds, seamlessly connecting to domestic instant payment systems, with full transparency and end-to-end tracking powered by Swift.
The European Payment Council’s One-Leg-Out Instant Credit Transfer scheme enables payments to and from Europe to be processed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This follows a successful proof of concept exercise earlier this year, in which Swift collaborated with European payment system Iberpay, Spanish banks BBVA, CaixaBank and Santander, and commercial banks from Australasia (ANZ and the National Australia Bank), Brazil (Itaú Unibanco) and the UK (Lloyds Banking Group). This saw dozens of international payments successfully reach Spanish accounts within seconds.
Interlinking market infrastructures in this way is key to achieving the G20’s cross-border payments goals around speed, transparency, cost and access. The G20 is targeting 75% of cross-border payments being credited with the beneficiary within an hour by 2027. Swift announced earlier this year that 89% of payments on its network reached the end bank within an hour.
One-Leg-Out Instant Credit Transfer scheme is seen by financial institutions as an opportunity to leverage the benefits of domestic instant payment systems globally, while enabling outgoing flows, and using existing rails.