The good news is that national inter-bank transfers should now be “instantaneous” (for that read: they could take place within 10 seconds) 24-hours a week, seven days a week.
The not-so-good news is that very few of the banks that have signed up to the service in Portugal appear ready to run with it (or even hop) – and when they do, they will be taking commissions.
Diário de Notícias explains: “There really aren’t many details … but the solution that promises to revolutionise euro payments won’t be free”.
So what do we know? The limit for these transfers is €15,000 and for now the service is limited to banks in this country.
Fifteen national banks have so far joined the system, but only two are ready to roll it out: Santander Totta and BPI.
Santander has gone so far as to say that for “some clients” the service will be free until the end of the year, the rest will have to pay €1.25 a pop.
BPI will be more expensive: €2.
CGD has said it is still “working on a solution”, while Novo Banco, and BCP are reported as not responding to press questions.
The bottom-line is that slowly national banks will work out how they are to respond to this 21st century revolution, as it extends to the rest of Europe.
DN suggests every bank here and in other member states should be up to speed by the latter half of next year.
The system has been developed by SIBS (Forward Payment Solutions) which devised the MB Way service that already allows immediate payments between bank cards on national territory. It is said to “guarantee anti-fraud security and follow the rules of the Single Euro Payments Area).
