STEP2 has announced the completion of migration to the new continuous gross settlement (CGS) mechanism, enabling faster delivery of Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payments for the benefit of European businesses and consumers.
CGS has replaced a cycle-based settlement approach, where payment transactions were only settled several times a day, with a system allowing real-time settlement of large payment volumes at any time during the business day.
Speaking on the announcement, David Renault, head of STEP2 services at EBA Clearing, says: “With the migration successfully completed, we now have all our participants from 28 countries using CGS and extending full reach for SEPA payments via this enhanced settlement mechanism to any payment service provider across Europe.”
Moving forward, he adds: “Our next step is to roll out further enhancements, which will enable our users to fully take advantage of the faster delivery of settlement results and the extended operating hours of the service going forward.”
STEP2 announced the move to process payments within minutes and around the clock in January 2021, which saw the upgrade begin in the final quarter of last year.
