The Eurosystem’s platform allows the settlement of electronic payments made in Swedish krona for instant payments
Image: Sveriges Riksbank headquarters in Stockholm. (Credit: Wikipedia.org/Arild Vågen.)
Sweden’s Sveriges Riksbank has signed an agreement with the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Eurosystem to gain access to the TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS).
As per the agreement, Swedish instant payment service, called RIX-INST will now be supported by Eurosystem’s TIPS platform.
With the agreement in place, the platform operated by the Eurosystem will enable the settlement of electronic payments made in Swedish Krona for instant payments.
Payment services providers will be enabled by TIPS to transfer and settle their customers’ funds in real-time, around the clock, every day of the year.
The platform, which has been in use in the euro area since November 2018, settle payments in the central bank money.
Sveriges Riksbank Governor Stefan Ingves said: “Even in times of crisis like those we are currently experiencing, it is the Riksbank’s task to ensure that Swedish payments are safe and efficient and here we are taking a major step forward to ensure that they continue to be so.
“As the number of small, instant payments increases, the more important it will be for our systems to be able to manage them.”
With access to the settlement platform, Sveriges Riksbank says that it can now offer banks a competitively neutral, safe and cost-effective payment system.
The new agreement is also expected to allow the central bank to provide scope for Swedish companies to develop new payment services.
RIX-INST could be launchedd in the spring of 2022
As the existing RIX system in use in the country was designed for large-scale payments and has limited opening times, there is a need to adapt it to the changing payments environment, the central bank.
Due to this reason, the Swedish central bank is developing the new service RIX-INST for instant payments, to which TIPS will act as the technical solution.
The new service is expected to be ready for launch in the spring of 2022.
In terms of use of instant payments, Sweden is known as one of the most advanced European countries, with high daily volumes. It is claimed that at present, the daily average number of instant payments in the country is 1.5 million per day.
European Centra Bank president Christine Lagarde said: “In crisis times, this agreement is a good example of strong cooperation between central banks in Europe.
“Our real-time settlement platform is a pivotal contribution to Europe’s endeavours to satisfy citizens’ increasing demand for faster, cheaper and convenient payment services without compromising on security.”