P27, the cross-border payments platform being developed by a group of Nordic banks, is to become the new national clearing house for Denmark, replacing the current infrastructure run by Finance Denmark.
Backed by Danske Bank, Handelsbanken, Nordea, OP Financial Group, SEB and Swedbank, P27's lofty ambition is to create one common state of the art payment platform in the Nordic countries.
With the approval of the board of Denmark's banking association, P27 will assume responsibility for the running of the nation's retail payments system, with the goal of making it easier for businesses and citizens in Denmark to pay bills and send real-time payments to other Nordic countries.
Michael Busk-Jepsen, director of digitization at Finance Denmark, says the updated infrastructure could make it possible for a MobilePay user in Denmark to make a payment to a Swish user in Sweden as well as provide the foundation for the development of new and innovate bill payment services.
He adds: "P27 will have a very important role since it will be the sector’s new clearing house, not only in Denmark, but also in Sweden and Finland. Hopefully, Norway will also join our Nordic clearing-family.
"This can potentially result in a Nordic clearing setup with full interoperability across the region, replacing the current national clearing operations."
This will enable banks to make payments in other Nordic countries using Nordic currencies through a single platform and with the same rules and standards as with Sepa, he says.
"I believe the Nordic region will soon be one of the first regions in the world where sending real-time payments in different currencies between different countries will be just as easy as sending a text message."