As part of its global instant payments strategy, SWIFT has announced that it will launch an instant payments messaging service for Europe, to be available by November 2018. The service allows instant payments to be made over the SWIFT network, giving customers a single gateway to multiple instant payment systems.

SWIFT's Christian Sarafidis said: “Initially, the instant payments gateway will provide access to multiple instant payments operators across Europe, and then the plan is to further expand into other markets.”

SWIFT is already providing payments messaging infrastructure for Australia's new payments system, AU NPP.

SWIFT states that the instant payments gateway can be used stand-alone, but it can also be integrated with SWIFT’s Alliance Messaging Hub (AMH), which enables the processing of financial message flows and integration with back office systems. It will be fully compliant with industry standards and specifications.

Sarafidis adds: “Our instant payments gateway is designed to meet the challenges our customers face and forms the cornerstone of our future footprint, in particular enabling access to the forthcoming combined T2/TIPS/T2S platform.”