EBA CLEARING gears up for more domestic traffic with the introduction of

• two additional liquidity distribution windows in EURO1 and

• increased credit caps in STEP1

EBA CLEARING announced today the successful launch and operation of two additional liquidity distribution windows on its large-value clearing and settlement platform EURO1.

The two new distribution windows went live at the beginning of July and have already witnessed a significant pick-up of activity: At this stage, more than 50 percent of the daily pay-out generated by the EURO1 Service takes place via these two windows scheduled at 13:00 and 15:30 CET. 

“The expansion of the intra-day liquidity distribution mechanism in the EURO1 Service marks a further step in EBA CLEARING’s ongoing efforts to prepare the service for the integration of additional domestic and treasury payments over the coming years,” said Alan Taylor, Director, EURO1 Services. “The new liquidity windows enable further recycling of banks’ liquidity throughout the day and ensure that even larger payment volumes and values will be processed rapidly and smoothly.” 

The additional distribution windows have been positively welcomed by large users of the EURO1 Service as they have already noticeably contributed to speeding up the throughput of payments. With the two new windows in place, EURO1 now counts a total of four automatic liquidity distribution windows between 13:00 and 15:30. By providing both prefunding and liquidity distribution features in EURO1 since June 2006, EBA CLEARING has enabled banks to better control their payment flows and more flexibly manage their liquidity without needing to depend on intersystem swaps and the involvement of third parties. 

The latest enhancement of the liquidity management mechanism in EURO1 is part of a series of new developments EBA CLEARING is implementing with a view to attracting additional national payment flows to its pan-European single payment services EURO1 and STEP1. To this effect, the Company has also decided to double the maximum credit cap for STEP1 Banks from EUR 25 million to EUR 50 million from today in order to ensure the smooth processing of more STEP1 traffic.

Furthermore, EBA CLEARING is currently preparing the publication of a EURO1/STEP1 Directory for April 2009, which will list all the reachable BICs of the financial clients of the Participants in the two services. This effective creation of an indirect participation mode will make it even easier for sending banks to route their payments through EURO1/STEP1 and extend the reachability of the two services for all Participants.