The aim of this announcement is to create traction by encouraging market players across Europe to prepare for a timely implementation of OCT Inst.

These institutions will leverage EBA CLEARING’s pan-European RT1 System for building critical mass for One-Leg Out Instant Credit Transfers (OCT Inst) across Europe. This will allow the development of solutions that improve the cross-border and cross-currency payment experience for end-users.

The institutions stepping forward are all users of EBA CLEARING’s RT1 System and include:

• Barclays

• BBVA

• BNP Paribas

• Citi

• Deutsche Bank

• HSBC

• ING

• Intesa Sanpaolo

• J.P. Morgan

• Societe Generale

The institutions plan to be reachable for OCT Inst via RT1 by 2027. Additional PSPs willing to commit to this timeline are invited to join this frontrunner group to help expand OCT Inst reach.

The pan-European RT1 OCT Inst Service was implemented in November 2024, supporting the OCT Inst Scheme created by the European Payments Council (EPC). OCT Inst enables the euro leg of cross-border, cross-currency payments. With this initiative, the 10 institutions are taking action in line with the G20 Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-border Payments.

Hay Littlejohn, CEO of EBA CLEARING, said:

“We are happy to support these users responding to the call for action on OCT Inst by the industry. Our participants can leverage the RT1 infrastructure to unlock the benefits of OCT Inst for their customers in a reliable and cost-effective way. This is an important first step towards enhanced cross-border payments leveraging pan-European real-time payment infrastructure, and we hope to quickly grow this group of users to support the success of OCT Inst.”

EBA CLEARING’s RT1 OCT Inst Service is based on the pan-European RT1 infrastructure for instant payments in euro. Launched in 2017, the system currently settles around 5.5 million payments per day. RT1 transactions are settled in real time and with immediate finality, in roughly one second, across all corners of Europe.