STEP2 SCT Settlement Migrated to TARGET2
EBA CLEARING has announced that its STEP2 SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) Service successfully completed its first settlement cycles on 8 December 2008 using Ancillary System Interface 4 (ASI4) of TARGET2. Settlement takes place on a multilateral net basis among all Direct Participants of STEP2 SCT. Based on the bilateral gross amounts established by STEP2, each bank’s net position is calculated through a new application developed by SWIFT, the Multilateral Netting Module (MNM), which then carries out the interaction process with ASI4.
As of 12 December 2008, STEP2 SCT will as well offer an innovative night-time cycle, which will settle at 1:30 in the morning using ASI6. With this optional third clearing and settlement cycle in STEP2 SCT, EBA CLEARING’s pan-European automated clearing house (PE-ACH) platform pioneers a night-time settlement solution for the ACH and SEPA world. A similar cycle had previously been available as a purely domestic and multilateral functionality in Finland but not at a pan-European level.
“Settlement in TARGET2 will further broaden access to STEP2 SCT and in this way also further facilitate the SEPA adherence process,” said Giorgio Ferrero, Chairman of EBA CLEARING. “We expect that many banks will want to directly settle their SCT traffic using the PE-ACH as part of their domestic migration to SEPA. We are pleased to support the banks in this migration process by offering them the flexible settlement procedures and options they require for operating in an integrated European payments environment.”