The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched a pan-European service for settling electronic payments instantly.
TARGET instant payment settlement (TIPS) uses central bank money to settle payments individually in less than 10 seconds.
TIPS went live on 30 November this year and the first transaction took place immediately when a client of CaixaBank used TIPS to make an instant payment to a client of Natixis.
Together with Abanca Corporación Bancaria, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Banco de Crédito Social Cooperativo, Berlin Hyp, Caja Laboral Popular Cooperativa de Crédito and Teambank, they are the first banks to join TIPS.
According to ECB, the new service is offered at an attractive price. Operating under the principle of full cost recovery, TIPS has no entry or maintenance fees for account holders.
The price per initiated transaction is set at €0.002 for the first two years of operation, with no charges for the first ten million payments settled on each TIPS account by the end of next year.
Banks across Europe can now follow the lead of France, Germany, and Spain, which have already connected to TIPS, ECB noted.
They can do this by linking to the platform and developing user-friendly solutions that support the take-up of instant payments by appealing to both retailers and consumers, it was revealed.
