The European Commission intends to reduce the maximum processing term for domestic and foreign bank payments within Europe to only one day. This proposition for a European payments area was announced last week by Charlie McCreevy, Member of the European Commission.
European payment processor Interpay has already complied with this new standard as of 2001. Interpay’s parcel settlement facility enables extremely prompt money transfer. This facility has been developed by Interpay and is unique within Europe. Each year, Interpay processes well over three billion transactions this way.
Parcel settlement allows batches of payments – parcels – to be settled at extremely frequent intervals, at least once every half hour. This amounts to hundreds of times per day. This unique facility thus enables frequent determination of the amounts owed between banks. Moreover, this makes an important contribution to effective cash management for both banks and business. Credit risks are avoided and booking information can be supplied frequently and quickly through data communication, thus enabling banks to inform their clients promptly about their current balances.
It appears from a survey conducted by the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) that Interpay’s Clearing & Settlement System (CSS) complies with the European Central Bank’s standards for system-critical retail payment systems. This covers ten Core Principles that relate to all aspects of an organisation: from security and management efficiency to control of financial risks and legal matters. DNB published the results of this survey in September 2005.