Spain's Iberpay and Santander have signed up as the first participants in the European Payment Council's new OCT Inst scheme for faster international account-to-account payments.
The OCT Inst (One-Leg Out (OLO) Instant Credit Transfer) scheme promises to bring the benefits of Sepa to international payments.
OCT Inst is a cross-currency payment scheme to support the processing of incoming and outgoing international instant account-to-account based credit transfers. It is the first EPC scheme which covers exclusively the Euro Leg of international instant credit transfers entering or leaving the geographical scope of Sepa.
This is designed to ensure faster execution of international payments, more transparency on costs and better payment status traceability.
The scheme went live in November but the postponement of ISO20022 migration for all Sepa schemes led to PSPs and Clearing and Settlement Mechanisms (CSMs) replanning the start of operations.
Now, Iberpay is ready to act as as the inagural CSM for OCT Inst transactions via Santander, and will also be a scheme participant in the role of processor.
Giorgio Andreoli, director general, EPC, says: "We are proud to introduce this innovative scheme at the right moment, as we believe it aligns well with market needs and policy objectives and it has the potential to revolutionise international instant payments, making a multilateral scheme-based approach available to a multilateral world."
Juan Luis Encinas, CEO, Iberpay, adds: "Providing the infrastructure and services necessary for processing international cross-currency instant transfers is a significant step forward for Iberpay, enabling our banks to offer new innovative services, to improve the customer experience and to remain highly competitive in the global payments industry."