Nordea first Nordic bank to join new European instant payment service

Nordea customers in Finland can now receive instant Euro payments in seconds from friends and business partners from Europe. This includes at any time of the day, seven days a week, all year round. 

The new pan-European Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) instant payments scheme has made the dream of lightning fast transfers a reality. 

By making instant Euro transfers available to its customers in Finland, Nordea has become the first bank in the Nordics to offer this breakthrough service.

Instantaneous   

Modern consumers increasingly expect to be able to make purchases at any time of the day and for their goods and services to be delivered almost immediately. In the Nordic region, adoption of local instant mobile payment services such as Siirto in Finland, Swish in Sweden and Mobile Pay in Denmark, has become the norm.

Tino Kam, Head of Payments, Liquidity Management and Corporate Channels at Nordea, says: “Today, the lives and businesses of consumers are becoming more global. As a natural progression to the uptake of local instant payment services, people now expect payments to also transcend national borders.” 

Fast first for Nordea

Until now, SEPA payments between banks have been processed during normal banking days, leaving customers often waiting hours or a whole weekend to receive payments. With this new service from Nordea, transferring Euros between banks is as quick as receiving a cash payment from a person standing next to you. 

Nordea is the first Nordic bank and one of the first banks in Europe to offer SEPA instant credit transfers, with its customers in Finland able to receive instant Euro payments from other European banks that have adopted the service.

Instant future

For Nordea, the next step in making instant payments standard is to enable its customers to send payments using a variety of existing and new channels. Whilst adopting SEPA is currently optional for banks, it is estimated that by 2020 most European banks in the SEPA area of 34 countries will have joined.