The proposal aims to ensure that instant payments in euro are affordable, secure, and processed without hindrance across the EU.
Instant payments allow people to transfer money at any time of any day within ten seconds.
This is much faster compared to traditional credit transfers, which are received by payment service providers only during business hours and arrive at the payee's account only by the following business day, which could take up to three calendar days. Instant payments significantly increase speed and convenience for consumers, for example when paying bills or receiving urgent transfers (e.g. in case of medical emergency).
In addition, they help to significantly improve cash flow, and bring cost savings for businesses, especially for SMEs, including retailers.
They free up money currently locked in transit in the financial system, the so-called ‘payment float', which can be used sooner for consumption or investment (almost €200 billion euro are locked on any given day). But at the beginning of 2022, only 11% of all euro credit transfers in the EU were instant.
This proposal aims to remove the barriers that prevent instant payments and their benefits to become more widespread.
