Payments via SEPA Instant: current developments

April 2022 is coming to an end and we are once again looking at Payments via SEPA Instant, in particular at the current participation of banks in interbank payments for Instant Payments.. As background information for more in-depth information, you will find the essential features of SEPA instant credit transfers in our article SEPA Instant Credit Transfer: Transfers up to € 100K in 10 seconds.

Payments via SEPA Instant: Key findings in April 2022

1. Slovenia is the first SEPA country to have all of its SEPA SCT-participating banks also participate in SEPA SCT Instant. Congratulations!
2. The number of payment service providers connected to the SEPA Instant scheme via TIPS continues to increase significantly.
3. The transaction statistics from ECB and EBA Clearing continue to show constant growth for SCT Inst in transaction shares and volume.

Comparison of SCT Inst vs. SCT participation in the SEPA area

Based on the data from ECB, from EBA Clearing and the Bundesbank’s directory of available payment service providers, the total number of payment service providers participating in SCT in the SEPA countries (measured using their BIC bank codes) is set in relation to the number of those opted for SEPA Instant participation. The following overview shows the BIC bank code count per country for SCT Inst in relation to SCT for the countries of the SEPA area. To explain: a ratio of 100% for a country means that all SCT participating BIC bank codes also participate in SCT Inst.

Payments via SEPA Instant: Ratio of the number of SCT Instant participants to SCT (counted by unique BIC bank codes) per SEPA country in April 2022.

Payments via SEPA Instant: Number of BIC bank code participants in TIPS and RT1

The following figure shows the number of BIC bank codes participating in TIPS and RT1 in the period from May 2020 to April 2022. The sustained significant increase in TIPS participants is probably due to the updated rules for SEPA Instant.

Payments via SEPA Instant: Number of BIC bank codes connected to TIPS or RT1 in the period May 2020 – February 2022 (data sources: EZB, EBA Clearing)

Current transaction statistics

EZB

The following graphic illustrates the transaction share of SEPA real-time transfers as a percentage of all SEPA transfers for the months October 2019 to December 2021:

Percentage of SEPA real-time transfers in all SEPA transfers between October 2019 and December 2021

EBA Clearing

The following figure shows the average daily SEPA Instant transaction volume processed via RT1 from January 2020 to March 2022.

Payments via SEPA Instant bzgl. RT1: Instant payment progress for R1: Average daily SCT Inst transaction volume in 2020-2022

Are you as a bank interested in software solutions for processing SEPA instant credit transfers?

CPG.instant as a software solution for connecting core banking systems to TIPS or RT1 in interbank payments

Among other things, we offer high-performance software solutions for processing SCT Inst transfers, which allow your bank to flexibly connect one or more core banking systems and clear SEPA instant payments accordingly via interfaces to TIPS or RT1.

If you have any questions or suggestions or you are interested in the topic of payment transactions, instant payment and related software products, please do not hesitate to contact us.

This article is part of a bi-monthly series and appears in our blog category on SEPA instant payments.

External data sources:

• ECB TIPS facts (16.03.2022)
• EBA Clearing RT1 participants (05.04.2022)
• Bundesbank Verzeichnis der erreichbaren Zahlungsdienstleister (25.04.2022)