Italy Makes Its Move In Real-Time Payments

The largest retail bank in Italy has made its first major step onto the stage of real-time cross-border payments.

Intesa Sanpaolo announced Tuesday (April 18) that it has successfully completed its first testing activities with EBA Clearing, using technology by Dovetail for pan-European real-time payments. According to reports, Intesa Sanpaolo is the first financial institution to connect into the testing system.

According to Stefano Favale, head of global transaction banking at the Italian FI, transactions between originator and beneficiary accounts will “take no more than 10 seconds.” According to EBA Clearing, account-servicing payment service providers across Europe will be able to use the technology for payments made in Euros starting in November of this year. Those transactions will be fully compliant with the European Payment Council’s SCTInst Scheme and aligned with ISO 20022 global payment messaging standards, reports added.

Intesa Sanpaolo first partnered with Dovetail in 2012 and first offered a look into their European payments initiative a few months later. Dovetail has replaced legacy systems across the bank’s international operations, reports said, and can facilitate high-value, low-volume as well as low-value, high-volume payments.

Reports in January first surfaced that EBA Clearing was testing its own real-time payments solution compliant with EU payment standards. The technology aims to make real-time payments across the EU available 24/7.

“We now look forward to engaging the growing community of early movers and their trusted service providers in the pilot user tests that will follow our acceptance testing with SIA,” said EBA Clearing CEO Hays Littlejohn in a statement at the time. “The system will be open to any AS-PSP adhering to the EPC scheme. We will offer different options to interact with the system in order to ensure that any type of user from anywhere in Europe can access the platform.”