A group of payments industry bodies, led by the European Automated Clearing House Association (EACHA), is due to present the business requirements for ensuring risk management, clearing and settlement and interoperability for instant payments in euro. The requirements will apply to SCT-instant Payments and the group, which was formed at the invitation of the European Central Bank (ECB), includes ACHs (including members of EACHA, EBA Clearing and representatives of Target2), national central banks, the ECB, and other stakeholders. The group's aim is to deliver the requirements to the Eurosystem by March 2016.

EACHA’s Interoperability Framework will be published in November 2016, soon after the publication of the EPC Scheme Rulebook for SCT-instant Payment. According to EACHA's press release, this will allow all stakeholders – banks, instant payment service providers, clearing and settlement providers, national central banks – to build and launch interoperable instant payment services in euro, ensuring pan-European reach from the outset.

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CTMFile take: Another positive step towards instant payments in the eurozone. Good to see short-term timeframes being set out for this.