REPORT on ACTIVITIES 2007 Practitioners Creating European-Wide Payment Infrastructures
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MARCH 2008 REPORT ON ACTIVITIES 2007 Practitioners creating European-wide payment infrastructures Content I. EBA CLEARING: The pan-European processing centre 2 II. EURO1: The cost-effective choice for clearing and settling euro payments 4 III. STEP1: A low cost offering for commercial euro payments 12 IV. STEP2: The PE-ACH with the reach for SEPA 16 1. The STEP2 XCT Service 17 2. The STEP2 Italian Credit Transfer (ICT) Service 20 3. The STEP2 SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) Service 21 4. The STEP2 SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) Service 25 V. System performance and enhancements 26 VI. Customer support 27 VII. Outlook 2008 29 VIII. Committees and User Advisory Groups 30 IX. The Board 32 X. The Management 34 XI. Offi ces 36 I. EBA CLEARING: The pan-European processing centre EBA CLEARING is the leading private sector Through regular meetings as well as train- provider of euro clearing and settlement ser- ing and briefi ng sessions, both at European vices in Europe. The Company was established and country level, EBA CLEARING entertains a in 1998 by 52 banks and had 69 Shareholders close dialogue with its users. This customer- by March 2008. It owns and operates EURO1, friendly approach has forged the Company’s a clearing and settlement system for fi nan- unique market responsiveness as a co-operative cial and commercial payments, and STEP1, undertaking in a fast changing environment. a single payment system for small and medium- sized banks, as well as STEP2, the fi rst and so In co-operation with the Euro Banking Associa- far only pan-European Automated Clearing House tion, EBA CLEARING takes an important part (PE-ACH) for mass payments in euro. Close to in the banking industry’s efforts to create and 300 banks across Europe are directly connected maintain an integrated pan-European payments to the services offered by EBA CLEARING as environment meeting the needs of the banks participants or sub-participants. and their customers in the Single Euro Pay- ments Area (SEPA). EURO1 Single payments, same-day, STP and non-STP, credit and debit STEP1 Payment fi les, STEP2 full STP: XCT, ICT, SCT, SDD 2 EBA CLEARING | REPORT ON ACTIVITIES 2007 Overview 2007 legal framework for this pan-European direct debit instrument has been transposed into national In 2007, EBA CLEARING contributed a crucial law by the different communities. cornerstone to the pan-European payment infrastructure landscape: the Company success- Besides these major deliveries for the new SEPA fully implemented and tested a SEPA Credit era, EBA CLEARING continued its work on further Transfer Service with SEPA-wide reach on its enhancing its existing services and optimising PE-ACH platform STEP2. The timely delivery the underlying system infrastructure. The success and launch of the STEP2 SEPA Credit Transfer of the Company in meeting the requirements of Service on 28th January 2008, the fi rst day of its users showed in the continued expansion the Single Euro Payments Area, responded to of both the market share and volumes of the the need of the European banking community different services. for a central infrastructure able to distribute SEPA Scheme-compliant payments across all As the EBA CLEARING services are attracting 31 participating countries. This outstanding more and more “domestic” payment volumes, result was achieved with the support of over the Company has continued to expand its 100 banks and the excellent development work geographical proximity to the users of its carried out by SIA-SSB. services in order to better accommodate their specifi c local needs in their migration process A SEPA Direct Debit Service was implemented to SEPA. In line with these efforts, EBA and tested on the STEP2 platform over the same CLEARING opened a regional offi ce in Italy in period and is ready to go live as soon as the early 2008. REPORT ON ACTIVITIES 2007 | EBA CLEARING 3 II. EURO1: The cost-effective choice for clearing and settling euro payments The EURO1 Service EURO1 is a real-time net clearing and settlement system for fi nancial and commercial pay- ments in euro. It went live in January 1999 in order to process individual inter-bank payments at intra-European level. In March 2008, EURO1 processed on average 249,042 payments per day for a value of EUR 290 billion. EURO1 is open to banks with a registered address or branch in the European Union with own funds of at least EUR 1.25 billion, a short-term credit rating A2 P2 equivalent and a head offi ce in an OECD or an EU country. By the end of Q1 2008, the system counted 69 Clearing Banks and 62 Sub-Participants. The EURO1 platform is based on a messaging and IT infrastructure provided by SWIFT. EURO1 provides low cost processing services for single payments. In addition, its processing mode provides banks with important liquidity savings. The Single Obligation Structure, the legal backbone of the EURO1 real-time net clearing and settlement arrangements, has been vali- dated for 25 EU jurisdictions (with legal opinions for Bulgaria and Romania still pending) and all other countries where headquarters of EURO1 Clearing Banks are located. EURO1 is fully compliant with the Lamfalussy standards and with the 10 Core Principles for Systemically Important Payment Systems (SIPS), as certifi ed by the European Central Bank (ECB). EURO1 is the only private sector clearing and settlement system for individual fi nancial and commercial euro payments at the pan-European level. The system is the leading processing infrastructure in this segment of the European payments market. 4 EBA CLEARING | REPORT ON ACTIVITIES 2007 2007 contributed another chapter in the success Integration of domestic volumes boosts story of EURO1. The service attracted a large volume growth proportion of domestic payment volumes, in particular from two national communities that In 2007, volumes in EURO1 continued to grow had been phasing out their local high-value by 15 percent in comparison to 2006. In terms systems. This development illustrates that EURO1 of daily average volume, EURO1 exceeded has taken full advantage of its pan-European 180,000 transactions in all but three months positioning in the consolidation process of single throughout 2007. Towards the end of the year, payment infrastructures. As a prime provider of volume growth accelerated to an average daily clearing and settlement services for single pay- volume of 197,118 in October, followed by a ments in euro – fi nancial and commercial – EBA record average of 231,863 in December. CLEARING expects to attract additional volumes at a time when banks across Europe are reas- In addition to the steady volume growth over sessing their payment strategies and routing the previous years, the service experienced decisions in the new SEPA environment. signifi cant upward boosts through the integra- tion of domestic payment fl ows: Throughout 2007, EBA CLEARING accommodated to the staged changeover of the clearing banks u In July 2007, EURO1 saw an increase of 18 from TARGET to the TARGET2 system, ensuring percent over the same period in 2006 due a smooth continuation of the clearing and set- to the fact that the major Dutch banks had tlement process for the migrating banks. The started to feed the volumes of their phased- system’s own migration to the TARGET2 platform out domestic system Telegiro into EURO1. will take place in May 2008. In early 2008, EURO1 extended its role to be- come as well the settlement engine for the new STEP2 SEPA Credit Transfer Service. REPORT ON ACTIVITIES 2007 | EBA CLEARING 5 u From the beginning of 2008, transactions in 2007. Sub-Participant numbers in EURO1 did that had formerly been processed by not see any major changes in 2007 but have the Paris Net Settlement System (PNS) were soared from 57 to 62 since the beginning of gradually shifted to EURO1. By mid-February, 2008, with another four banks scheduled to this migration of volumes was completed. join in April, including the fi rst Sub-Participant from Lithuania. Since the beginning of 2008, EURO1 has com- fortably exceeded the 200,000 threshold each The launch of the STEP2 SCT Service had Pre- month, demonstrating the continuing steady fund Participation (PFP) reach new heights, growth of transactions processed by the service. with the number of PFP Banks rising from On 25th March 2008, EURO1 reached a new nine to 23 by the end of March 2008. Pre-fund peak with 328,058 processed transactions in Participation was introduced as an additional one day. option for fi nancial institutions to settle their STEP2 obligations. At EBA CLEARING’s request, SWIFT has started to assess the potential for increasing the capac- EBA CLEARING is currently looking into the de- ity in EURO1/STEP1 in order to accommodate velopment of a dedicated EURO1/STEP1 directory future volume growth. to further facilitate the usage of the system. Sub-Participation and Pre-fund Participation Active use of the liquidity bridge on the rise Launched in mid-2006, the liquidity bridge has In spite of the ongoing consolidation process in established itself as an important liquidity the European banking industry, the number of management tool for banks participating in EURO1 Banks remained relatively stable through- EURO1. By March 2008, 25 banks pre-funded out 2007. By 31st March 2008, the number of their positions in EURO1 on a regular basis, clearing banks stood at 69, compared to 70 with pre-funding transactions totalling EUR 21.5 6 EBA CLEARING | REPORT ON ACTIVITIES 2007 EURO1: average daily volume of payments processed 300,000 250,000 200,000 150,000 100,000 50,000 0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2006 2007 2008 REPORT ON ACTIVITIES 2007 | EBA CLEARING 7 billion per day.