Paris and Singapore, 14 October 2015

EBA CLEARING issues updated version of blueprint for pan-European instant payment infrastructure solution

Publication of updated version follows extensive consultation exercise in the third quarter of 2015

The blueprint is available upon request

EBA CLEARING has issued an updated version of its Blueprint for an Instant Payment Infrastructure Solution, which was first made available to the payments industry and interested stakeholders in July 2015.

As the Company announced today at the Sibos conference in Singapore, the publication of the updated version follows an extensive consultation exercise, which took place between July and September 2015 and involved potential users and key stakeholders. This exercise was geared at further refining and specifying the requirements for a pan-European instant payment infrastructure solution based on the input received. Over 230 participants contributed to this consultation during the third quarter of 2015 by taking part in dedicated consultation sessions organised in eight countries and webinars.

The blueprint document spells out high-level business requirements and a roadmap 2015-2018 for the delivery of a pan-European instant payment infrastructure solution. The blueprint was initially compiled based on the input of a task force composed of over 20 representatives of EBA CLEARING service users from all across Europe. The first edition of the blueprint generated a lot of interest by the payments industry and was downloaded over 500 times by payment service providers (PSPs), technology providers, consultancies and other payment professionals.

The delivery of the second edition of the blueprint document was taken forward in parallel with the launch announced last week of a Request for Proposal process to search for a technical solution provider capable of implementing and running an instant payment infrastructure solution of panEuropean scale for EBA CLEARING.

“We would like to thank the many contributors to this consultation process for their feedback on our blueprint. It has helped us in our work 2/2 About EBA CLEARING to further refine the requirements for a pan-European instant payment infrastructure solution. This marks an important step in view of the next phases towards the delivery of this solution,” said Hays Littlejohn, Chief Executive Officer, EBA CLEARING.

The future instant payment infrastructure solution by EBA CLEARING will be geared at handling any euro transactions that are in line with the instant payment definition and requirements formulated by the Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB) in late 2014. The solution should thus be able to support any real-time payment products that payment service providers (PSPs) in Europe may decide to offer to their customers. The architecture of the solution will be flexible enough to meet the requirements of a pan-European SCT scheme for instant payments to be proposed by the European Payments Council (EPC).

In line with the roadmap issued as part of its blueprint document, EBA CLEARING plans to offer a pan-European service for instant payments in the clearing and settlement layer to PSPs by 2018, after a pilot phase in 2017.

An electronic copy of the updated version of EBA CLEARING’s Blueprint for an Instant Payment Infrastructure Solution is made available to the interested public for information and can be requested via the following link:

www.ebaclearing.eu/N=Blueprint-Instant-Payment-Solution.aspx

About EBA CLEARING

EBA CLEARING is a provider of pan-European payment infrastructure solutions. The Company was founded in 1998 and is owned by 60 of the major banks operating in Europe.

EBA CLEARING manages the large-value payment system EURO1 as well as STEP1, a payment service for commercial transactions, and STEP2, a pan-European payment infrastructure platform for mass payments in euro, providing full reach to all financial institutions across Europe processing credit transfers and direct debits in euro. More than 4,800 financial institutions in 34 countries are reachable via STEP2.

For additional information about EBA CLEARING, please visit www.ebaclearing.eu or follow us on www.twitter.com/ebaclearing or https://www.linkedin.com/company/eba-clearing.

For further information about the EBA CLEARING Instant Payment Task Force, including a list of the participating institutions, please go to: www.ebaclearing.eu/N=Instant-Payment-Task-Force.aspx.