OTP Bank successfully completes EURO1 joining process

• First EURO1 bank from CEE region scheduled to go live in December

• OTP Bank will also join the STEP2 SCT and XCT Services

EBA CLEARING and OTP Bank announced today the formal acceptance of OTP Bank as an EBA CLEARING shareholder and EURO1 participant. The largest independent bank in the Central and Eastern Europe region has successfully completed the EURO1 joining process and will participate in the service from 6th December 2010.

OTP Bank is the first financial institution from Central Europe to directly connect to EBA CLEARING’s clearing and settlement for single payments, which enables payment banks across Europe to exchange financial and commercial transactions on a net basis. The new EBA CLEARING shareholder will bring the number of EURO1 participants to 67 and will also join the STEP2 SCT and XCT Services on 8th November and 6th December respectively.

“We look forward to going live as a EURO1 clearing bank in December, which will put us in a position to centralise the euro payments flow of the whole OTP Group and to implement an efficient liquidity management at group level,” said Marta Koren, Director at OTP Bank. “Our connection to EURO1 marks a major step in our move from indirect memberships in various platforms to direct participation in pan-European platforms, such as EURO1 and STEP2. This is part of our strategy to evolve from a user of correspondent banking services into a provider of the same services to banks across Central and Eastern Europe.” 

“We are delighted to welcome OTP Bank as a new participant to the EURO1 system after a very smooth joining process,” commented Alan Taylor, Director, EURO1/STEP1 Services. “We expect that the EURO1 and STEP2 connection of our first shareholder bank from the CEE region will contribute to further widening the reach of the EBA CLEARING services.”

EURO1 is the leading industry-owned clearing and settlement platform for single euro payments at a pan-European level. The 66 participants and 58 sub-participants that are currently connected to the service can directly and indirectly exchange payments with more than 26,000 reachable BICs worldwide, which are listed in the EURO1/STEP1 Directory. As a real-time net settlement system with a pre-funding facility and four liquidity distribution windows, EURO1 enables banks to optimise the use of their liquidity in the system. 

Access to EURO1 is open to any bank operating in Europe that fulfils the required conditions in terms of own funds and risk rating.

The EBA CLEARING Company was established in June 1998 by 52 EBA clearing banks as a separate entity from the Euro Banking Association (EBA). It was designed to own and operate 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 first and so far only Pan-Europe an Automated Cearing House (PE-ACH) for mass payments in euro, STEP2.

EURO1 and STEP1 provide an efficient, secure, liquidity-saving and costeffective 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 about EUR 230 billion. EURO1 currently comprises 66 participants and 58 subparticipants; STEP1 includes 94 participants and 47 sub-participants.

For additional information about EBA CLEARING, please visit: https://www.ebaclearing.eu/