EURO1/STEP1 Directory increases service reach by close to 75 percent

EBA CLEARING announced today that its new EURO1/STEP1 Directory lists close to 2,400 reachable banks, in addition to the 10,000 participating banks’ BICs, a year after the agreement to jointly deliver the Payments Directory was signed by EBA CLEARING and SWIFT at Sibos 2008. This means that participant banks are now able to use EURO1/STEP1 for the routing of transactions to close to 7,500 additional BICs across the world. This represents an increase in the reach of the EURO1/STEP1 Services by almost 75 percent.

EBA CLEARING developed this Payments Directory in co-operation with SWIFT in order to support participants in EURO1 and STEP1 in their routing of payments to third party banks that are clients of EURO1/STEP1 Banks. The Directory allows the originator banks to identify the EURO1 or STEP1 Banks through which the beneficiary banks can be reached.

The successful and timely introduction of this new Payments Directory on 6th April 2009 has put participants in a position to use the EURO1/STEP1 Services for channelling payments to a wider range of banks. “By integrating the new Directory in their back office applications, participant banks are able to address a growing number of third party banks through EURO1/STEP1,” said Alan Taylor, Director, EURO1/STEP1 Services. “This allows the banks to send more payments via EURO1/STEP1 and thus further benefit from the favourable transaction pricing structure and the liquidity advantages of these services.”

On the beneficiary side, banks profit from a higher visibility for their client base through the EURO1/STEP1 Directory. This visibility is additionally increased through a new marker (EB+) that has been introduced in the SWIFT BIC Directories for banks identified as being reachable via EURO1/STEP1. As the use of the new Payments Directory continues to increase, participants should receive more and more payments on behalf of their client banks through the highly efficient intra-day payment channels that the EURO1/STEP1 Services constitute today.

All participants and sub-participants in EURO1/STEP1 can subscribe to the EURO1/STEP1 Payments Directory via the SWIFT Directories ordering webpage on www.swift.com. Updates to the Directory are available for download on a monthly basis. Subscription and submission of data to the Directory are free of charge for participant banks.

Daniel Szmukler, Tel: +33 6 73 74 75 (d.szmukler@abe-eba.eu)

Annick Moes, Tel: +49 151 16 31 15 26 (a.moes@abe-eba.eu)

The EBA CLEARING Company, www.ebaclearing.eu, was established in June 1998 by 52 EBA clearing banks as a separate entity from the Euro Banking Association (EBA) geared at owning and operating the EURO1 large-value payment system (launched in November 1998) and the STEP1 low-value payment system for commercial transactions (launched in November 2000). The Company also manages and operates the PanEuropean Automated Clearing House STEP2.

EURO1 and STEP1 provide an efficient, secure, liquidity-saving and cost-effective infrastructure to the banks in Europe for channelling their commercial and large-value single payments. EURO1 and STEP1 are based on the messaging infrastructure and computing facilities provided by SWIFT.

Payments processed through EURO1 are irrevocable and with immediate finality. Following the cut-off of EURO1 at 16:00, the final positions of banks participating in the system are settled via the European Central Bank.

The average number of daily transactions processed by the EURO1 and STEP1 systems today amounts to about 230,000 for a total value of over EUR 260 billion. EURO1 comprises 66 direct participants and 58 sub-participants; STEP1 includes 99 direct participants and 50 sub-participants.