Recognised as a systemically important payment system by the European Central Bank, the cutover to ISO20022 will keep Euro1 in step with other industry infrastructures, and ensure full intra-day switchability with Target2.

Hays Littlejohn, CEO of EBA Clering, says: “The migration of large-value euro payments to the ISO 20022 standard is a major exercise for payment service providers across Europe. Our goal is to make this changeover as smooth and seamless as possible for our Euro1 participants by fully aligning with the migration plans and timetable of Target2."

Euro1 processes on average over 200,000 payments per day with an average total value of about EUR200 billion. The system currently counts 48 participant banks and reaches a total of over 20,000 BICs in and beyond Europe.

Swift has been providing the messaging layer for Euro1 and acting as processing agent since its launch in January 1999. A proof-of-concept conducted earlier this year demonstrated the value to users of greater alignment not just with Target2 but also with EBA Clearing's instant payment platform RT1 and automated clearing house Step2, via the development of a liquidity dashboard using pre-existing APIs.

"Our users have requested that the core of Euro1 stay unchanged," says Littlejohn. "They still see a great benefit in a highly liquidity-efficient and cost-effective LVPS platform providing immediate finality for their payments and the possibility to flexibly switch flows between Euro1 to Target2. At the same time, many users are looking to strengthen their central payment monitoring and steering capabilities, which is why they have asked us to seek maximum alignment for Euro1, not only with Target2 but also with our Step2 and RT1 Services.”