Memo Bank launches instant payment up to €100,000 without additional costs

“While the cost for service providers of using TIPS is 0.20 eurocent (€0.002) per instant payment transaction, instant payments are sometimes offered to consumers for €1 per transaction. This must change. For instant payments to become the new normal, they must be cheap and easy to use.” — Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, May 19th 2021

Memo Bank, the first independent bank created in France in 50 years, has been committed to supporting SME’s cash management by building strong financial services. With a direct connection to all European payment systems, Memo Bank becomes the only bank offering instant payments to all its clients, without additional costs.

The SEPA Instant Payment (also called SCT Inst or Instant payment) is a solution to transfer or receive a maximum of 100 000 euros in the SEPA Zone, in less than 10 seconds. This system operates around the clock on any day of the year. In comparison, it takes up to 3 days for a regular payment to be processed.

Nowadays, instant payments can be charged from €1 up to €8. This may represent massive banking fees for any company dealing with hundreds, or even thousands of transfers on a monthly basis. As they are processed in real-time, instant payments are a real asset for SME’s cash management, but they remain rarely used because of their price (1). To support SMEs, Memo Bank decided to offer instant payment without additional costs for all its clients.

Not only do instant payments help manage cash flows for a company, it also ensures immediate availability of the payment for all beneficiaries – meaning they become an ally when it comes to maintaining a strong customer-supplier relationship.

This system allows financial teams to make transfers to balance the company’s accounts in just a few seconds if necessary. And it obviously is the promise to finally pay employees at a fixed date, every month, all year round.

“To widen the access to instant payments, we have decided to become a direct participant in all European payment systems, explains Jean-Daniel Guyot, co-founder and president of the management board at Memo Bank. The reason we’re now able to offer to our clients instant payment without additional fees, is that we have become in some way a direct producer.”

Memo Bank decided to work without intermediaries and has joined RT1 directly, the EBA Clearing European instant payment infrastructure system. Direct participation is the best way to reduce costs, by limiting the number of intermediaries. This allows Memo Bank to offer instant payments to all its clients, and help SMEs manage their cash flows.

(1) Summary of use cases and obstacles to the deployment of instant credit transfers in France – CNPS