Swift connects instant payment systems to bring 24/7 processing across borders

The European Payment Council’s One-Leg-Out Instant Credit Transfer scheme (OCT Inst), which went live this week, enables payments to and from Europe to be processed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The go-live follows on from a successful proof of concept earlier this year in which Swift collaborated with Iberpay, the European payment system; Spanish banks BBVA, CaixaBank and Santander; and commercial banks from Australasia (ANZ and the National Australia Bank), Brazil (Itaú Unibanco) and the UK (Lloyds Banking Group), with dozens of international payments successfully reaching Spanish accounts within seconds.

OCT Inst is seen by financial institutions as an opportunity to leverage the benefits of domestic instant payment systems globally, while using existing rails.

Marianne Demarchi, chief executive of Swift in Europe, says: “Interoperability is at the heart of everything we are doing at Swift to achieve our strategy of instant and frictionless payments for all, and it will be key to achieving the G20’s goals for cross-border payments. The EPC’s OCT Inst scheme is a positive step for Europe that will enhance the user experience for payers in Europe, but also all around the world.”

She says Swift is closely monitoring other inter-linking intiatives that will connect domestic Confirmation of Payee schemes to tackle fraud.

In September, for instance, Italy’s bank-backed digital payments ooperator, announced that it was extending its Confirmation of Payee service (Name Check CBI) to the European level through connection with Payment Pre-validation.