Progress SEPA Instant Payments: how is the payment method developing?

An article by

Dr. Martin Berger

Published on

28/08/2023

Updated on

12/12/2024

Reading time

7 min

Here we provide a snapshot that shows the current participation of financial institutions and payments service providers in the SEPA Instant Payment Scheme and, in particular, assesses the progress of SEPA Instant Payments in interbank payments.

Notable news regarding SEPA instant payments

What you should know about SEPA instant payment

  1. The text of the EU regulation on instant payments is now final and can be read here.
  2. The EU Parliament approved the regulation on February 7, 2024 - with 599 votes in favor, 7 votes against and 35 abstentions. The approved regulation was published in the EU Official Journal on March 19, 2024.
  3. The deadline for implementing passive participation - i.e. the acceptance of SEPA instant payments - will be 9 months after the regulation comes into force, i.e. January 8, 2025!
  4. The deadline for implementing active participation - i.e. the execution of SEPA instant payments - will be 18 months after the regulation comes into force, i.e. October 8, 2025!
  5. The deadline for implementing Verification of payee will be 18 months after the regulation comes into force, i.e. October 8, 2025!
  • The proportion of SCT participants in the entire SEPA area who are also SCTInst participants reached 39%.
  • In the last two months, this ratio has seen a strong increase of 36% in Slovakia, 14% in Portugal and 13% in Spain and Luxembourg.
  • The transaction volume of SEPA Instant Payments continues to rise steadily.

Progress SEPA Instant Payments: Comparison of SCT Inst vs. SCT 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 payments implementation. 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 the key figure Ratio SCTInst/SCT BIC-Bankcodes:

  1. A ratio of 100% for a country means that all SCT participating BIC bank codes also participate in SCT Inst.
  2. A ratio of 0% for a country means that no SCT participating BIC also participates in SCT Inst.

Progress SEPA Instant Payments: Ratio of the number of SCT Instant participants to SCT (counted by unique BIC bank codes) per SEPA country in December 2024

Progress SEPA Instant Payments: Ratio of the number of SCT Instant participants to SCT (counted by unique BIC bank codes) per SEPA country in December 2024

Progress SEPA Instant Payments: 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 December 2024:

Progress SEPA Instant Payments: Number of BIC bank codes connected to TIPS or RT1 in the period May 2020 – December 2024 (data sources: EZB, EBA Clearing)

Progress SEPA Instant Payments: Number of BIC bank codes connected to TIPS or RT1 in the period May 2020 – December 2024 (data sources: EZB, EBA Clearing)

Current transaction statistics of ECB

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 March 2024:

Progress SEPA Instant Payments: SEPA real-time transfers as a percentage of all SEPA transfers between October 2019 and March 2024 (data source: ECB)

Progress SEPA Instant Payments: SEPA real-time transfers as a percentage of all SEPA transfers between October 2019 and March 2024 (data source: ECB)

Current transaction statistics of EBA Clearing

The figure below shows the average daily SEPA real-time transfer transaction volume processed via RT1 from January 2020 to October 2024:

Average daily SCT Inst transaction volume in 2020-2024 (data source: EBA Clearing)

Average daily SCT Inst transaction volume in 2020-2024 (data source: EBA Clearing)

Are you as a bank interested in software solutions for SEPA Instant Payments?

<a href="https://www.cpg.de/en/cpg-instant/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CPG.instant</a> as a software solution for connecting core banking systems to TIPS or RT1 in interbank payments

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:

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