P27's initial goal is to enable real-time, batch, domestic and cross-border payments to be carried out quickly and at low cost between people and businesses within the countries of Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

Six Nordic banks - Danske Bank, Handelsbanken, Nordea, OP Financial Group, SEB and Swedbank - in October last year signed a shareholders' agreement, agreed on a business plan, and made a financial commitment that will cover all costs up until the company is financially sustainable. The ambition is to launch the payments platform in 2021.

The complex project will entail the replacement of eight national legacy systems to handle multi-currency payments across a common infrastructure.

The Swedish Migration Committee has been formed to coordinate the banks’ switch to the new infrastructure and to prepare the business community for a move to the new ISO 20022 messaging standard. Similar initiatives are being conducted in the other Nordic countries.

SEB says it will be informing large corporate customers "shortly" that they need to prepare to migrate to the new standard in time for the launch in 2021.

Robert Pehrson, head of business development in Transaction Services and SEB’s representative on the P27 Advisory Board, explains: “Companies often manage their payments in their accounting systems, and in such cases it is vendors like Visma or SAP who need to prepare."

The first live delivery from P27 is planned to take place in early 2021, when account-to-account transfers are set to begin. This will be tested by the banks during the year, and SEB expects to be able to introduce the service at the end of the year.

“We in P27 are laying down the rails that the payments will roll on,” says Paula da Silva, head of SEB Transaction Services and interim chair of the P27. “It is then the banks that will provide the payment products to their customers.”