EBA Clearing

EBA Clearing is a provider of pan-European payment infrastructure with headquarters in Paris. It is wholly owned by its shareholders.

Its initial mission consisted in the operation of the clearing and settlement system for single euro transactions of high value EURO1, which the Euro Banking Association (EBA) had transferred to EBA Clearing for the launch of the system in 1999. Besides EURO1, EBA Clearing also owns and operates STEP1, a payment system for single euro payments for small and medium-sized banks, and STEP2, a Pan-European Automated Clearing House (PE-ACH) for euro retail payments. In March 2013, EBA CLEARING launched MyBank, an e-authorisation solution for online payments, which is geared at facilitating the growth of e-commerce across Europe.

Both EURO1 and STEP2 have been identified as Systemically Important Payment Systems (SIPS) by the European Central Bank (ECB). EBA CLEARING is also planning to deliver a pan-European instant payments infrastructure solution in the course of 2017.

The organisation is based in Paris and has representative offices in Brussels, Frankfurt and Milan.

EBA Clearing was founded in June 1998 and is owned by 52 of the major payment banks operating in Europe.

EURO1 is a RTGS-equivalent large-value payment system on a multilateral net basis, for single euro transactions of high priority and urgency, and primarily of large amount. EURO1 is owned and operated by EBA CLEARING. It is open to banks that have a registered address or branch in the European Union and fulfil a number of additional requirements. EURO1 is subject to German law (current account principle/single obligation structure) and is based on a messaging and IT infrastructure provided by SWIFT.

Since 2000, EBA CLEARING has been offering a payment service named STEP1 for small and medium-sized banks for single euro payments of high priority and urgency. The technical infrastructure is the same as that of the EURO1 system, both use the messaging and IT infrastructure of SWIFT.

STEP2 was put into operation in 2003 with Italian payment system provider SIA S.p.A. It processes mass payments in euro. STEP2 is a Pan-European Automated Clearing House (PE-ACH). This means that it complies with the principles set by the European Payments Council (EPC) for a PE-ACH Compliant Clearing and Settlement System.

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