During the International Payments Summit, SIA (Societ Interbancaria per l’Automazione) and EBA CLEARING said that the top seven Italian banking groups were ready to start migrating their domestic credit transfers to the STEP2 platform on 24th November 2006. STEP2 is the first Pan-European Automated Clearing House (PE-ACH), designed and developed by SIA, which also operates the service on behalf of EBA CLEARING.
In 2008, when SEPA is implemented, there will no longer be any difference between national and international payments directed towards Members of the European Union, as well as Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland (in the EFTA area).
“From our point of view, SEPA is already a reality, because we have realised the first, and to this moment only, SEPA-compliant infrastructure: STEP2,” says Renzo Vanetti, the CEO of SIA. “Right from the start we were determined to fulfil the role of IT full-service provider that EBA had assigned to us. The launch of the two national communities in Italy and Luxembourg confirms the commitment of SIA and EBA CLEARING to building the Single Euro Payments Area”.
On 24th November, Gruppo Intesa, Gruppo Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Gruppo Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Gruppo Bipiemme-Banca Popolare di Milano, Gruppo Banco Popolare di Verona e di Novara, Gruppo San Paolo-IMI and Gruppo UniCredito will progressively migrate their credit transfers to a single European clearing and settlement system, already in use among the 25 EU Members for a significant share of cross-border transfers.
The technology of the platform developed by SIA is fully compatible with the systems of other Italian and foreign banks that have not yet migrated to the new system.
“We have been working hard with SIA and seven Italian banks to achieve a timely implementation of this highly sophisticated clearing platform,” adds Gilbert Lichter, the CEO of EBA CLEARING. “Banks in Italy and Europe will now be able to switch in a flexible manner their domestic payments to PE-ACH as part of their SEPA migration strategy”.
The purpose of migrating to STEP2 is to manage all payment operations (national and cross-border) on a single pan-European SEPA-compliant platform.