EBA Clearing: the bank-owned clearing house behind EURO1, STEP2 and RT1
EBA Clearing is a provider of pan-European payment infrastructure, owned by 48 banks operating in Europe. A euro payment between banks can pass through one of its three systems: EURO1 for large-value payments, STEP2 for SEPA credit transfers and direct debits, and RT1 for instant transfers.
From the Euro Banking Association to a clearing house
The Euro Banking Association founded the company in June 1998, and EBA Clearing states that 52 banks stood at its start. The company has always been a separate organization from the association that gave it its name. EURO1 went live on January 4, 1999, the same day as the Eurosystem's TARGET system, according to Wikipedia. EBA Clearing has its seat in Paris and representative offices in Brussels, Frankfurt, Helsinki, London and Milan. Its shareholders include Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank.
The European Central Bank oversees EURO1 and STEP2-T directly. In 2014 it identified both as systemically important payment systems, next to TARGET2 and the French CORE system.
EURO1: large-value payments with netting and finality
EURO1 is the private-sector large-value system for same-day euro payments at pan-European level. It has 33 participant banks and processes on average 180,000 payments a day with a total value of about EUR 200 billion. EURO1 nets the payments of its participants and still makes each single payment final when it is processed. EBA Clearing reports that 95 percent of EURO1 transactions settle in real time at system level and over 99 percent within 30 minutes. The system runs under German law on Swift messaging.
The Eurosystem's own large-value system, T2, works differently: it settles every payment one by one in central bank money. Finance Loop explains that method under real-time gross settlement.
STEP2 and RT1: SEPA payments in bulk and in seconds
STEP2 started in 2003 together with the Italian provider SIA. It is a pan-European automated clearing house for the schemes of the European Payments Council: the SEPA credit transfer and the SDD Core and SDD B2B direct debits. EBA Clearing states that more than 4,800 financial institutions in all SEPA countries are reachable through STEP2.
RT1 went live on November 21, 2017, for the SEPA instant credit transfer. On November 17, 2024, RT1 added a service for the One-Leg Out Instant Credit Transfer scheme, which carries the euro leg of an instant payment entering or leaving SEPA (Payments Industry Intelligence). The service list on the EBA Clearing site also names a verification of payee service, FPAD for fraud pattern and anomaly detection, and R2P for request-to-pay.
Upcoming payments events
Is EBA Clearing the same as the Euro Banking Association?
No. The Euro Banking Association is a forum for payment practitioners. EBA Clearing is the company that operates EURO1, STEP2 and RT1. The association founded the company in 1998, and the two have been separate since. Neither is the European Banking Authority, the EU banking regulator that also uses the abbreviation EBA.
Who owns EBA Clearing?
48 banks operating in Europe hold the shares. The list on Wikipedia includes ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, Santander and UniCredit.
How does EBA Clearing differ from TIPS?
TIPS is the Eurosystem's instant payment settlement service and settles each transfer on central bank accounts. RT1 is a private system for the same SEPA instant scheme, run by EBA Clearing for its participants. A bank can be reachable in both. The instant payments regulation requires banks in the euro area to be reachable for instant transfers, whichever system the sending bank uses.
EBA Clearing and Finance Loop
Finance Loop brings together people at banks and payment institutions who connect to EURO1, STEP2 and RT1 and manage the liquidity behind them. EBA Clearing has a representative office in Frankfurt. During Sibos 2025 at Messe Frankfurt, Finance Loop organized a side event at TechQuartier on payments and blockchain.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the adoption of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, digital payments, cloud and blockchain solutions. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.