Crédit Agricole Italia Banking Group has launched a new instant payments service with SIA’s digital platform.
The SIA EasyWay platform will enable all holders of a current account at one of the banks in the Group to make and receive instant credit payments directly from their computer, smartphone or tablet using the Nowbanking app.
Additionally, Crédit Agricole will be able to offer distinctive payment services that allow its private and business customers to transfer up to €15,000 per individual transaction.
It will be able to do this 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in line with the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer scheme of the European Payments Council (EPC), according to Credit Agricole.
According to Crédit Agricole, the platform enables real-time exchange of transactions in a secure and protected manner with EBA Clearing’s RT1 pan-European instant payments infrastructure.
SIA EasyWay was created with the aim of accelerating the process of adoption of instant payments and of all the other SEPA payment and collection instruments by banks and the other European Payment Service Providers while minimising investments and simplifying the operative management.
The platform is also ready to manage instant payments on TIPS, the new service of the Eurosystem, which is expected to launch by the end of the year.
Filippo Corsaro, head of product and customer marketing at Crédit Agricole Italia Banking Group, said: “Since we are a proximity bank and, at the same time, a Group with an ever-increasing digital vocation, we believe that the relationship with our customers is based on the development of innovative products and services that are easy to use even when on the move.”
“We are pleased to be able to contribute actively to the spread of this new payment method, both nationally and internationally, and to be among the first Banking Groups to offer Instant Payments to its customers. With the launch of the new service we have completed another piece of our strategic plan, 100 percent human and 100 percent digital.”
Roberta Gobbi, director of SIA’s financial institution's division, said: “The development of the collaboration with Crédit Agricole Italia represents a further step forward in SIA’s positioning as the technological partner of reference for the main European banking groups in the field of advanced payment services.”
Gobbi added: “Italy thus confirms its place among the most dynamic countries in the adoption of instant payments, currently made available by over 1,000 payment service providers present in 12 Eurozone countries.”
