The PAYTECH Book

Instant Payments: A New Deal for the Payments Market?

By Andréa Toucinho

Head of Studies, Prospective and Training, Partelya Consulting

Instant payments represent a huge evolution for the payments market. This innovation symbolizes the evolution from a conservative and national market to a real globalized and modern sector. How it has and will evolve around the world is the question.

Background

Instant payment was born in the post-SEPA context, thanks to institutional initiatives from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Payments Council (EPC). In certain countries, like France, many professionals had already targeted the creation of a fast SEPA credit transfer (SCT) as a huge goal to modernize the payments market. The technological process of instant payment – SCT Inst. – was recently guaranteed by an ECB initiative: the creation of target instant payment settlement (TIPS), officially launched on 30 November 2018 to foster European connectivity.

The ECB is positioned as a technological provider to foster instant payments. This is a position that the market can understand when it analyses the idea that instant payments represent a huge challenge for European sovereignty. In fact, confronted with American and Asian solutions like Apple Pay, or even Alipay, it seems logical that Europe should develop its own payment scheme.

An Institutional and Geopolitical Initiative

More than a technological evolution, instant payments are a huge challenge at a geopolitical ...