Portugal with 691 million in pan-European immediate transfers
According to data released today by the Bank of Portugal (BdP), on the day that marks the year of the connection of the national banking community to TIPS – TARGET Instant payment settlement, the service provided by the Eurosystem to carry out transfer transfers at pan level -European, in this period Portugal assumes itself as “the seventh most active country in the TIPS”.
With a total of about 418 thousand immediate transfers, worth 691 million euros, received and received by payment service providers in the Portuguese community, the daily average was about 1,678 transfers, amounting to 2.8 million euros, with the average value per transfer being around 2,300 and 1,400 euros, respectively.
The balance made today by the BdP also indicates that “the majority of immediate transfers from the national banking community are sent to Spain and received from the Netherlands”.
TIPS enables payment service providers to ensure continuous processing of immediate transfers, 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year, with funds being made available to recipients’ accounts within seconds.
When the national community connected to TIPS in October 2020, customers of 14 national payment service providers were able to make immediate transfers to around 4,000 banks in seven European countries: Germany, Austria, Spain, France, Italy, Latvia and the Netherlands.
A year later, the service was adopted by two more national payment service providers and around 500 more payment service providers from countries such as Belgium, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania and Luxembourg.
According to the BdP, “by the end of November 2021 it is expected that around 2,140 more payment service providers will join TIPS (including Finland and Greece), following the measures defined by the Council of the European Central Bank to ensure the pan-European reach of immediate transfers through TIPS”.
Currently, the system settles transfers only in euros, but it will also allow the settlement of transfers in SEK and Danish Kroner, in 2022 and 2025, respectively (for customers with accounts denominated in former currencies).
Additionally, he says, “the possibility of being processed in TIPS transactions between different currencies (‘cross-currency’) is being analyzed.
According to Banco de Portugal, “TIPS is, and will be even more, instrumental for immediate transfers to become the ‘new normal'”.
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