EBA Clearing, the French provider of pan-European payment infrastructure services, announced today that 11 financial institutions, from Italy, France and Luxembourg, have decided to join the MyBank solution for its launch on 25th March 2013, making the MyBank solution available to millions of retail customers and thousands of e-merchants. The go-live will mark the first step of the roll-out of this pan-European electronic authorisation solution for online payments across the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).

Payment service providers (PSPs) and e-merchants offering the MyBank solution to their customers from March 2013 on will be able to rely on the support of 16 integrators, which have declared that they will offer off-the-shelf technical solutions to PSPs and e-merchants wishing to offer the solution from day 1.

Nine of the participants in the first joining window are located in Italy. This will provide a solid basis for the solution to be quickly accepted throughout Europe.

The go-live of the solution in March 2013 follows the successful completion of the MyBank pilot in November 2012. In the first phase, MyBank will support the initiation of SEPA Credit Transfers via browser-based applications. A mobile application and functionality supporting the creation or modification of e-mandates for SEPA Direct Debits are planned to follow during 2013.

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MyBank could soon the world's largest system for making on-line purchases via consumers's regular online banking environment. Merchants should take at look at this solutions as it will avoid the high payment card merchant service charges. A sure fire winner? It works in Netherlands, but will it prove as popular in Italy and France?