EBA Clearing has revealed that its RT1 platform has reached critical mass in Belgium for instant payments.
The pan-European instant payment infrastructure system now counts six participants based in Belgium: Aion SA, BNP Paribas Fortis, Belfius, CBC Banque, ING Belgium and KBC Bank.
EBA says that with this coverage, the vast majority of Belgian payment accounts are now reachable for euro instant payments from all across Europe.
RT1 provides payment service providers in the single euro payments area (SEPA) with a real-time payment processing facility operating around the clock on any day of the year for payments.
This is in line with the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) Scheme of the European Payments Council.
Payments in RT1 are settled in real-time with immediate finality. In addition, RT1 is open to any account-servicing payment service provider (AS-PSP) adhering to the EPC SCT Inst Scheme.
In November 2020, EBA Clearing’s RT1 platform expanded its reach in Luxembourg with five new joiners including Banque et Caisse d’Epargne de l’Etat, Luxembourg and Banque Internationale à Luxembourg.
In total, RT1 has established critical mass for instant payments in 11 countries throughout the continent, including Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Spain.
RT1 currently counts 76 participants across Europe, which extend to 2,588 addressable payment service providers (PSPs) from 24 different SEPA countries listed in the routing table of the system.
Hays Littlejohn, CEO of EBA Clearing, comments: “We are very pleased that PSPs across Europe can now reach a critical mass of payment accounts in Belgium via RT1. This marks another important milestone in the successful collaborative build-up of instant payment reach.”
“We will continue our efforts with market players all across Europe to further increase this reach, which is a major pre-requisite for the Europe-wide uptake of instant payments by businesses and consumers,” adds Littlejohn.
