European banks sign up to gpi trial on TIPS
A group of banks are to trial gpi cross-border payments in Europe using the Target Instant Payments Settlement (TIPS) platform.
“TIPS can open new possibilities for the market”
The institutions participating in the European pilot include Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, BBVA, Deutsche Bank, Natixis, Santander, Sberbank and UniCredit.
The European Central Bank (ECB) and Swift have launched this initiative with the aim to extend the reach of instant cross-border payments deeper into the European market. Banks will carry the cross-border legs of the payments, which they will then settle through TIPS, allowing for instant crediting of accounts at ultimate beneficiary banks across Europe.
Since its launch in 2017, Swift says that gpi is ensuring that, on average, 40% of Swift gpi payments are credited to end beneficiaries within five minutes.
Mehdi Manaa, deputy director general, Market Infrastructures and Payments at the European Central Bank, says: “The support of the ECB to this initiative is in line with our strategic objective of ensuring that our Target Services keep pace with the evolving needs and requests of banks in the payment landscape. This shows how the 24/7 availability of central bank money provided by TIPS can open new possibilities for the market.”
Alain Raes, chief executive EMEA and Asia Pacific, Swift, says: “This trial is another critical step in extending the reach and utility of our cross-border instant payments service. By linking Swift gpi and TIPS, our customers will be able to leverage their existing investments to deliver a superior service to their clients.”
A similar arrangement was trialled by SWIFT in 2018 with Australia’s domestic instant payment system, the New Payments Platform (NPP), and a group of banks from Australia, China, Singapore and Thailand.
SWIFT is now working with its community to extend the scope of this initiative to other real-time systems around the world.
