24 Oct 2023

During the online meeting on October 19, 2023, representatives from CS, Ukrainian banks, and the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) discussed the technological implementation and testing of the new version of SEP 4.1 for conducting instant transfers.

Ukraine's financial institutions successfully migrated to the new generation of the System of Electronic Payments (SEP) 4.0 based on the ISO 20022 standard in April 2023. The creation of an ecosystem for instant payments is the next step that will bring Ukraine's financial system closer to integration with the European system, particularly facilitating Ukraine's accession to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).

According to the NBU's roadmap, in order to successfully implement instant payments in Ukraine, banks can connect to the SEP sandbox starting from October of this year for testing instant payments.

CS company provides the technological capability for such implementation, which is why it gathered all interested participants for a meeting to discuss the intricacies of implementing instant payments in SEP 4.1.

During the meeting, the following topics were discussed:

• Differences between credit transfers in SEP 4.0 and instant transfers in the new SEP 4.1.
• Advantages, prospects, and practical examples of using instant payments in SEP.
• Schemes for conducting instant payments in SEP.
• Specific requirements of the NBU regarding instant payments.
• CS's technological solution for implementing instant payments in compliance with NBU requirements.

Several other questions regarding the peculiarities of conducting instant payments and the commencement of their testing in the sandbox were raised during the Q&A session. The presence of representatives from the National Bank of Ukraine at the meeting helped clarifying the requirements related to financial monitoring during the testing of instant payments.