ZURICH (Reuters) -The Swiss National Bank and the European Central Bank are exploring interlinking their instant payment services, Switzerland’s central bank said on Monday.
“This initiative supports the general goal of making cross-border payments faster, cheaper, more transparent and more accessible,” the SNB said in a statement.
The exploration phase will evaluate interlinking the Swiss Interbank Clearing (SIC) System and TIPS, the Eurosystem’s TARGET Instant Payment Settlement service, the SNB said.
The exploration phase will continue through 2026. Its aim is to assess the feasibility and economic viability of such an interlinking, the statement said.
It would allow for cross-currency instant payments, which are payments originating in one currency area to be credited to an account in the other currency area within seconds, the SNB said.
(Reporting by Dave Graham, Editing by Miranda Murray and Ludwig Burger)
