Participation in the Euro Banking Association (EBA) priority payment scheme will enable banks to roll out urgent payment offerings to their customers, along with other Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) instruments that they are planning to offer.

Adherence to the scheme guarantees the processing of single credit transfers from originating customer account to beneficiary customer account within a maximum of four hours and with same-day availability of funds, the association said.

The EBA currently runs a pilot group of 26 banks from 13 European countries that have committed to prepare themselves technically and operationally for processing urgent payments.

Banks wishing to process urgent payments in line with the conditions of the EBA priority payment scheme need to declare their adherence to the scheme by registering on a central repository, which will be maintained and published through the EBA and can be securely accessed via the EBA website. The central repository, provided by reference data solutions provider CB.Net, will allow originating banks to validate whether an intended receiving bank actually participates in the scheme.