OTP Bank is the first financial institution from Central Europe to directly connect to EBA CLEARING's clearing and settlement for single payments, which enables payment banks across Europe to exchange financial and commercial transactions on a net basis. The new EBA CLEARING shareholder will bring the number of EURO1 participants to 67 and will also join the STEP2 SCT and XCT Services on 8th November and 6th December spectively.

"We look forward to going live as a EURO1 clearing bank in December, which will put us in a position to centralise the euro payments flow of the whole OTP Group and to implement an efficient liquidity management at group level," said Marta Koren, Director at OTP Bank. "Our connection to EURO1 marks a major step in our move from indirect memberships in various platforms to direct participation in pan-European platforms, such as EURO1 and STEP2. This is part of our strategy to evolve from a user of correspondent banking services into a provider of the same services to banks across Central and Eastern Europe."

"We are delighted to welcome OTP Bank as a new participant to the EURO1 system after a very smooth joining process," commented Alan Taylor, Director, EURO1/STEP1 Services. "We expect that the EURO1 and STEP2 connection of our first shareholder bank from the CEE region will contribute to further widening the reach of the EBA CLEARING services."