The STEP2 platform is a processing infrastructure for euro retail payments across Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and has been live since 2003.
It has participation of over 4,700 banks across 32 countries. It handles 5.8 million payments a day and is overseen by the European Central Bank.
EBA Clearing CEO Gilbert Lichter said that STEP2 was designed as a scalable and flexible system to optimally support the migration of cross-border and domestic volumes to the SEPA formats.
"The necessary preparations for a smooth changeover of the processes of all the parties involved have already started and are expected to lead to a successful migration over the coming months," Lichter added.
In Germany, it will support at least seven institutions in exchanging national credit transfers and direct debits in the SEPA formats.
Commerzbank divisional board member of banking operations Christian Rhino said that as a pan-European system, STEP2 enables banks to channel all their euro retail transactions within Europe through one clearing system.
EBA plans to soon offer German-speaking customer support service to STEP2 users. It will be integrated into its office in Frankfurt.
