Iberpay and Santander lead the way in EPC’s OCT Inst Scheme

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The European Payments Council (EPC) has named Iberpay and Santander as the first participants in the One-Leg Out (OLO) Instant Credit Transfer (OCT Inst) scheme.

As the inaugural participants in the scheme, Iberpay will act as a Clearing and Settlement Mechanism (CSM) for OCT Inst transactions via Santander. Additionally, the Spanish payments system will also be a participant in the role of OCT Inst Processor.

Juan Luis Encinas, CEO at Iberpay, commented: “The start of the EPC’s One-Leg-Out OCT Inst scheme marks a key strategic milestone for payments in Europe and for Iberpay, demonstrating our commitment to decisively enhance international cross-currency payments in terms of processing speed, 24×7 operation, information transparency, accessibility, and costs reduction.

“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.”

Introduced last year, the OCT Inst scheme is a cross-currency payment system tailored for swift international account-to-account (A2A) credit transfers. Its primary goals include ensuring the faster execution of international payments, enhancing cost transparency and improving traceability of payment statuses.

The EPC stated that the OCT is unique among its other payment schemes due to an exclusive focus on the Euro Leg of international instant credit transfers entering or leaving the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).

Giorgio Andreoli, Director General of the EPC, said: “We are delighted to welcome Iberpay – as self-declared compliant CSM and OCT Inst processor – and Santander – as Euro-leg Payer/Payee and Entry/Exit PSP – as the first participants in the OCT Inst Scheme.

“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.”

Earlier this week, Spanish bank Santander reported a data breach at a third-party provider, in which customer and employee information was accessed. The bank found that customers of Santander Chile, Spain and Uruguay, as well as all current and some former Santander employees of the group, had been exposed.