European Payments Council’s SEPA Instant Credit Transfer scheme goes live
SCT Inst payments are currently available at nearly 600 PSPs
The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme created by the European Payments Council (EPC) is now operational.
As of today (21 November), the EPC says nearly 600 payment service providers (PSPs) from eight European countries are offering instant payment solutions based on SCT Inst. It was launched last year, with Javier Santamaría, chair of the EPC, calling it a “new era in payments, based on speed and innovation” and it “will pave the way for emerging methods of payment, such as person-to-person mobile payments”.
The EPC says more PSPs from other European countries are expected to join in 2018 and 2019. The scheme allows the electronic transfer of money – currently up to €15,000 euros – across Europe “in less than ten seconds, at any time and on any day of the year, including weekends and holidays”.
The transactions covered must be denominated in euros. SCT Inst payments are currently available at nearly 600 PSPs (585 exactly, or 15% of all European PSPs) in Austria, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Spain.
According to the EPC, the geographical scope of SCT Inst will progressively span over 34 European countries. Other PSPs from the following countries are expected to join the scheme in 2018 and 2019: Belgium, Finland, Germany, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.
In addition, the EPC states that it will make the scheme “evolve to better reflect market needs”. This will be done in “close dialogue with all payment stakeholders”. For example, the maximum amount per transaction will be regularly reviewed starting from November 2018.
With charming timing, the EPC recently created a nifty infographic that covers this scheme.
