EBA CLEARING to launch OCT Service on RT1

EBA CLEARING announced today the delivery of a One-Leg Out Instant Credit Transfer (OCT Inst) Service in the RT1 System for November 2024. This new cross-border service in RT1 will be developed in line with the OCT Inst Scheme of the European Payments Council (EPC). It will rely on the processing infrastructure, the interfaces and other key components of EBA CLEARING’s pan-European instant payment system. The specifications for the service will be made available in April 2024.

In accordance with the EPC’s OCT Inst Scheme, the new service will enable payment service providers (PSPs) operating in SEPA to process incoming and outgoing international credit transfers through RT1. This means that, for the euro leg of their cross-border payments, PSPs can take advantage of a state-of-the-art real-time payment infrastructure based on the ISO 20022 standard and operating 24/7. As defined by the EPC scheme, the transactions will also fulfil the transparency and traceability requirements set by the G20 and the Financial Stability Board for international payments.

David Renault, Head of SEPA Services at EBA CLEARING, said:

“We are pleased to develop the RT1 OCT Inst Service at the request of our users, so they can leverage existing building blocks and investments for their cross-border transactions. RT1 OCT Inst will provide our users with an easy and convenient way to re-use their instant payment rails for international payments.”

Erwin Kulk, Head of Service Development and Management at EBA CLEARING, said:

“We believe that RT1 OCT Inst can also serve as an important stepping stone for our Immediate Cross-Border Payments (IXB) initiative, which is aimed at establishing service levels for the full payment journey in the U.S. dollar and euro corridor and, potentially, other currency corridors.”   

RT1 is a pan-European infrastructure for instant payments in euro, owned and operated by EBA CLEARING. Launched in 2017, the system currently settles around three million payments per day – in real-time and with immediate finality, in roughly one second, across all corners of Europe. RT1 reaches all PSPs adhering to the EPC’s SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) Scheme and offers a variety of options allowing any type of EPC SCT Inst Scheme adherent to access the system in the way that best suits their needs.

Together with The Clearing House and Swift, EBA CLEARING has been working on the IXB initiative with the aim to enhance cross-border payments in the euro and U.S. dollar currency corridor and, potentially, additional corridors, through the interlinking of and settlement synchronisation between instant payment systems.