Banca Popolare di Sondrio launches its new instant payments service aimed at its customers, private and business, thanks to SIA’s “EasyWay” digital platform directly connected to EBA Clearing’s pan-European system for instant payments, RT1.

The innovative functionality allows the entire clientele of the banking group to make instant payments in less than 10 seconds for a maximum amount currently set at €15,000. The service, active 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, is aligned with the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer scheme (payment with immediate and irrevocable credit) of the European Payments Council (EPC).

The “SIA EasyWay” digital platform used by Banca Popolare di Sondrio operates as a “hub” simplifying the integration of instant payments with the internal systems of financial institutions, reducing costs and activation times.
This is made possible through an integrated service between Banca Popolare di Sondrio and SIA which covers the entire value chain of the payment: from the order via all the channels used by banks and payment service providers – for example mobile and internet – to the handling and processing of transactions, right up to network connections to access EBA Clearing’s RT1 infrastructure, the Eurosystem TIPS platform (the launch of which is expected by the end of 2018) and the various European Automated Clearing Houses (ACH).

“We have always paid great attention to the area of payments to offer our customers exceptional services, and so we felt it was appropriate and necessary to propose instant payments to them”, commented Milo Gusmeroli, Deputy General Director and CIO of Banca Popolare di Sondrio. “In creating our service,

we called on the collaboration of SIA for a number of reasons, certainly including functional and technological know-how, as well as the guaranteed service levels. All this without forgetting to focus our attention on integration in the core operating systems in question, in addition to the so-called front-end, to improve the user experience of the customer”.

“We are especially proud to have created instant payments for Banca Popolare di Sondrio, supporting their leadership in innovation in a sector undergoing transformation such as that of electronic payments”, said Roberta Gobbi, Director of SIA’s Financial Institutions Division. “Through our digital platform, to date still the most widely used in the Italian bank market, the banking group was able to get the new instant payments service up and running in just three months to all its private and business customers. This represents the beginning of a path of revitalization undertaken by Banca Popolare di Sondrio in the payments area which SIA will support with its technological competences, infrastructures and services”.