The move to lower prices comes eight months after the ECB published its first projections for Target2 pricing in October last year. The proposals were poorly received, particularly by the larger European banks, who felt that the fee structures failed to provide sufficient incentives for large volume users. They also railed against the charges laid out for a new liquidity pooling service.

Responding to these concerns, the ECB has introduced a new discounted rate for users channelling in excess of 100,000 transactions per month through the system, and at the same time slashed the costs of opening liquidity pooling accounts for 'multi-group' users.

In flagging the changes, the ECB says Target2 remains well on track to meet the starting date of 19 November 2007, as well as the two subsequent migration waves for users moving to the uniform network.

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