Payment by bank transfer will soon only be allowed to take 10 seconds, as the European Parliament is now requiring all European banks to offer so-called 'instant transfers' at no extra cost.
People waiting for payment by bank transfer sometimes have to be patient, especially if the sender has an account with another bank. According to Belgium's current rules, transfers should be processed by the next working day but it can sometimes still take up to several days due to weekends and holidays.
"The Instant Payments Regulation marks the long-awaited modernisation of payments in the European single market. Customers can now say goodbye to the inconvenience of waiting two or three working days to access their money," said Dutch MEP Michiel Hoogeveen (ECR). "We are delivering on something that people and businesses truly care about: transferring money within 10 seconds at any time of the day."
So-called instant transfers have been possible since 2017. Such transfers send a payment from one account to another within 10 seconds – around the clock, including on weekends and public holidays. Most banks in Belgium have been offering the service since 2019, but not all of them for free.
One in five transfers are instant
The share of instant payments is rising in Belgium, but it is not yet the standard: they currently account for one-fifth of all individual transfers, according to figures from the Belgian federation for the banking sector Febelfin.
At the European level, the situation is very different from country to country. Some countries, such as the Netherlands, have fully jumped on the bandwagon. In others, the change is going considerably slower.
On Wednesday, the European Parliament obliged European banks to offer those instant transfers at the same cost as an ordinary payment. In Belgium, that means free of charge. These payments should be possible within the same country, but also to other European countries.
Importantly, that does not mean banks will make the instant transfer the standard. Clients might still have to opt for it separately.
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As payments via Bancontact count as card payments, they will not be covered by the new rules. Additionally, the Payconiq mobile payment service would not normally be subject to the rules, even though there is actually a bank transfer behind their QR codes. In practice, if your bank offers instant transfer option, your Payconiq payment will also be done in 10 seconds.
The measure will not take effect immediately, as all Member States will have a year to introduce it. Member States where the euro has not been introduced will also have to apply the rules after a longer transition period, if their financial institutions already offer regular transfers in euro.
