Seven Italian banks have signed an agreement with EBA Clearing to migrate to its STEP2 cross-border payments system as Western Europe moves towards the European Commission-mandated goal of creating a Single European Payments Area (SEPA).
The banks are Banca Intesa, Gruppo Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Gruppo Bipiemme-Banca Popolare di Milano, Gruppo Banco Popolare di Verona e Novara, Sanpaolo Imi e Gruppo Unicredit. As a result, they will be using the same European platform for both domestic and cross-border payments.
A new Automated Clearing House (ACH), which links together the current cross border payments systems, will be designed and managed by SIA (Societ Interbancaria per l’Automazione), the Italian technology firm that built both the Italian domestic payments system and the EBA cross-border payments systems for wholesale and retail payments.
The seven banks will migrate to the STEP2 platform by Spring 2006. According to SIA, it will put the Italian banking industry ahead of the development of a single infrastructure for all banks in the European Union. SIA says the daily volume of payments in the Italian market exceeds 400,000 (to be exact, 403,938 in 2004 against 380,024 in 2003), worth Euros 5.2 billion (against Euros 4.8 billion in 2003).
Banks in other European countries are exploring relationships with the EBA Clearing House. Finland and Luxemburg are studying what to do, but the Spanish banks have already signed a preliminary agreement.