EBA CLEARING and Seceti announce cooperation on establishing a STEP2 link

EBA CLEARING and Seceti S.p.A. announced today their cooperation on establishing a link to the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) Service on the STEP2 platform. This link will allow financial institutions that are participating in the Seceti system to exchange SEPA payments with banks in 31 European countries.

Both companies plan to have the link in place for the start of SEPA on 28th January 2008. Financial institutions using this link will have the choice to either settle their obligations themselves or to appoint another bank as their settlement bank.

“Seceti’s cooperation with EBA CLEARING will provide our users with an efficient solution for sending and receiving SEPA payments to and from financial institutions in the Single Euro Payments Area. Since their connection to STEP2 will be established and hosted by Seceti, our institutions do not have to face any major changes or disruptions at the start of SEPA, as they can send all their payments through one single channel,” said Giuseppe Capponcelli, General Manager, Seceti. 

“EBA CLEARING looks forward to the cooperation with Seceti and its user institutions. We are very pleased to establish interoperability with an important player in the Italian payment infrastructure market and to provide our communities with reach throughout SEPA,” said Gilbert Lichter, Chief Executive Officer, EBA CLEARING.

The Seceti-STEP2 link will allow Seceti users to benefit from EBA CLEARING’s position as a pan-European ACH (PE-ACH) for SEPA payments in 31 European countries. Conversely, the link supports the reach of STEP2 in Italy. So far, EBA CLEARING has established interoperability between STEP2 and local platforms in 11 SEPA countries.