If today we tried to take a look at the world of money transfers from a different point of view, we would ask ourselves: why do goods move faster than money? If I buy something online, I will certainly receive the (physical) goods sooner than when the merchant does not receive the (digital) money. At least until the novelty of the Instant Transfer, which represents the natural evolution of the SEPA Transfer (also called SCT or BEU) and which will be launched shortly, among others, by Intesa Sanpaolo.
“Intesa Sanpaolo – explains Stefano Favale, head of the Global Transaction Banking Department of Intesa Sanpaolo – was the first European bank to announce, last April, the successful completion of the first stages of testing the new payments infrastructure and will be among the first active banks starting from 21 November next. By that date, our consumer customers and our companies will receive a specific communication and will be able to send and receive payments in real time having the possession of a current account as the only necessary condition. No registration or request to sign contractual additions".
Compared to the wire transfer as we know it now, the instant one inherits many "updated" features to respond to the needs of a society that is now accustomed to Real Time. The 4 key features of the new instant bank transfer are:
1) Availability of the sending and receiving service 24/7 (even at night, even on weekends, even on holidays);
2) Immediate and irrevocable credit. Within 10 seconds the transfer is credited to the beneficiary's account and the sums can be immediately repaid;
3) Pan-European reachability. When fully operational, 34 European countries, 4400 banks and 500 million people will be reachable;
4) Maximum amount per transaction equal to €15000 per single transaction.
The European initiative follows some successful cases already achieved in other European countries, where Real Time payments are now the norm: in the UK the similar initiative called Faster Payments already attracts over 40% of the total number of transactions (well above the threshold of one billion annual transactions). The interesting fact is that the growth of real-time payments has not led to a contraction of other forms of digital payment, but has helped the migration of forms of payment such as cash or checks to digital.
“Intesa Sanpaolo – continued Favale – has made significant investments in the new infrastructure ensuring a better level of service compared to the current transfers both in terms of execution times and information (eg immediate outcome to both the originator and the beneficiary). However, the price will be much lower than that of an urgent bank transfer which is the most comparable service; there will be no commissions on incoming wire transfers. In the future, the new Instant Payment infrastructure will also be used as a basis for building new and more complex payment services, with different features and functions depending on the use cases”.
Instant bank transfer it will allow to support innumerable use cases both for transfers between individuals and for transfers to and from companies. Let's think, for example, of how simple and fast it could be to buy or sell a used car, without having to submit to the cumbersome process of requesting / issuing / delivering / collecting a cashier's check, or how fast it could be for a company to unblock a delivery to receipt of funds for a particular order or, again, how nice it would be to be able to receive a refund from your insurance company in real time.
