In July 2020, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced that the project timeline to consolidate TARGET2 (T2) and TARGET2-Securities (T2S) would be extended by one year following discussions with the European financial community.
In September 2020, the ECB announced some of the key milestones moving forward.
- 30 June 2021: Direct participants must finalise the procurement for their Network Service Provider (NSP).
- 1 Sept 2021: Network connectivity tests begin. Participants must have made the necessary implementations to connect to T2 and can begin to exchange test messages with the new T2 service.
- 1 Dec 2021: Functional test begin. Participants can begin end-to end interaction, interoperability, community and business day tests.
- 21 Nov 2022: T2 service goes live.
These new milestones will allow for an extended testing period with the new T2 service directly. Participants connected to Swift are already able to use our Test Sparring Service, which can simulate these future interactions with the service.
Additionally, the ECB has announced that any participant using its NSP’s cloud-based solution may agree on alternative ways of providing connectivity between the directly connected actors’ premises and the NSP’s data-centre. This avoids the mandatory use of leased lines.
Lastly, the ECB has shared additional details about its plan to ensure the pan-European reach of instant payments by the end of 2021. Impacted institutions will have to make a decision about how they will participate in TIPS by the 31 Jan 2021 and be ready to go live by 15 December 2021.
Contact us to find out how the pan-European instant payments reach initiative will impact you.
Swift is committed to its role as NSP and trusted partner in connecting financial institutions to ESMIG and supporting you at every stage of the journey.
Connecting via Swift will also enable customers to benefit from Swift’s new platform strategy. Our new approach will transform cross-border transactions, creating an end-to-end instant and frictionless experience. It will enable seamless, frictionless and instant payments from one account to another, anywhere in the world, using our experience, unrivalled security standards and compliance expertise to innovate rapidly at scale, with the right levels of risk and control.
To date, more than 700 financial institutions (directly connected actors) have selected Swift as their Network Service Provider for ESMIG. If you are interested in joining them, or want to know more about how the T2-T2S consolidation and the pan-European instant payments reach initiative will impact you, please contact your Swift account manager or visit our support page.
