Banks – Frankfurt am Main – ING Germany: real-time payments soon for private customers – business
Frankfurt / Main (dpa) – Transfers in seconds have been possible for years – now private customers of the direct bank ING Germany should also be able to use so-called instant payments. “We also want to offer this to our private customers at the end of this year. Initially for incoming payments, then also for outgoing payments in the coming year,” said ING Germany boss Nick Jue of the German press agency in Frankfurt.
As with other banks, such turbo transfers will probably not be free of charge
Instant Payments are payments from account to account that are processed around the clock in seconds. With such real-time payments, the recipient can dispose of the amount received immediately after sending the payment. Until now, the money was usually only posted on the next bank working day. For example, anyone who sells their old car privately has previously had to at least factor in the risk that the buyer will not pay. If such a transaction is processed by real-time payment, the seller can directly check whether the money has arrived in his account.
In Europe, the “SCT Inst” called “SCT Inst” fast transfers have been possible since November 21, 2017. On the same day, Hypovereinsbank (HVB), which belongs to the Italian Unicredit Group, tested the system; since November 27, 2017, HVB customers have been able to order transfers in real time via online banking. In mid-July 2018, the savings banks followed suit, and Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank as well as various cooperative banks also offer the service.
The boost hoped for by experts for this art of cashless payment did not materialize, however. Quite a few financial institutions are still doing without instant payments, as the industry newsletter “finanz-Szene.de” recently showed, which also reported on the start of instant payments for corporate customers at the direct bank ING.
ING Germany boss Jue does not expect the resounding success from the introduction for private customers, as he said in an interview with the German press agency: “We have to have this on offer. I am skeptical whether it will really be used so heavily . “
There is still room for improvement across Europe. The European Payments Committee currently lists 2304 payment service providers from 24 countries in the so-called Sepa area who offer instant payments. That is 59 percent of the payment service providers in Europe.
In the Sepa payment area (“Single Euro Payments Area”), transfers, direct debits and card payments are to be standardized across borders and thus accelerated. This single euro payment area includes the 27 EU states as well as: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, the Vatican City state and the United Kingdom. The EU Commission had set the goal of making payments within seconds the standard throughout the European Union by the end of 2021.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210926-99-363287 / 2