The European Payments Council is pushing ahead with plans for a pan-European instant credit transfer scheme, launching a public consultation on the details of the blueprint to bring real-time money transfers across the Single Euro Payments Area (Sepa).
Set to launch in late 2017, the Sepa Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme promises to enable people to transfer up to EUR15,000 within 10 seconds, 24/7/365, across borders between accounts in any of 34 Sepa countries.
The public consultation on the SCT Inst rulebook - which describes the business and technical rules for PSPs joining the optional scheme - will run until 10 July, with payment stakeholders including PSPs, as well as end users and technical players, encouraged to offer their views.
The decision to build an instant payments scheme comes in response to concerns that the emergence of new domestic platforms, such as the UK's Faster Payments scheme, might end up creating a fragmented market in Europe, similar to what existed in regular payments in the past.
The EPC says that SCT Inst transactions will be convenient for customers needing to send money across Europe quickly, and will further push cash to the edges, proving useful for things such as paying bills on the spot.
Javier Santamaría, chair, EPC, says: "The new scheme will be a turning point in making pan-European instant credit transfers in euro a reality. We look forward to the participation of all PSPs and technical players in the public consultation for this project, which will be the first of its kind in a region as large as Sepa."