2017-01-31
Bank of Lithuania supports aim of payment service providers to offer instant payments
This year the goal is to present users in Lithuania with an advanced payment innovation – instant payments. Such payments would be carried out with just a few clicks on your phone, and the funds would be credited in a few seconds. The Bank of Lithuania and the three largest mobile network operators have signed a Protocol of Intent on cooperation in the development of instant payment services.
From the left: Pranas Kuisys (UAB „Bitė Lietuva“), Petras Masiulis (UAB „TELE2“), Kęstutis Šliužas (TEO LT, AB) ir Vitas Vasiliauskas (Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania). Photo by V. Skaraitis, BFL
‘We are standing on the threshold of change. Instant payments will help ensure an advanced and competitive payments market. This is our strategic direction. With implementation of modern technologies and new participants entering the payment services market, we expect stronger competition among payment service providers and much faster and more convenient payments at the lowest possible price for users,’ says Vitas Vasiliauskas, Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania.
UAB Bitė Lietuva, UAB TELE2, and TEO LT, AB, in signing the Protocol of Intent on cooperation in the development of instant payment services, agreed to provide already in 2017 an environment for users and businesses to settle through instant payments and to design and install the infrastructure necessary for such payments. This means that users will be able to pay with their mobile phone while shopping online and at physical points of sale (where this option is available), as well as to transfer funds from person to person using their phones; the funds will be credited in a few seconds, 24/7, without days off. One of the key aspects singled out in the Protocol of Intent is availability of the newly-designed infrastructure for all payment service providers.
‘The openness of the instant payments infrastructure is one of the key motives of why we support, and will continue to support and advise in the future, the providers of such open and universally available systems. If no artificial barriers are created, lightning-fast, convenient and low-cost instant payments will spread more rapidly and society will reap the benefits much sooner,’ says Vasiliauskas.
According to him, the Bank of Lithuania plans to expand the functionality of the retail payment system SEPA-MMS (which it operates) so that it will be capable of processing instant payments between different payment service providers. This would provide conditions to settle and immediately receive the payment irrespective of the financial institution, offering instant payment services, that the payer and payee have accounts with.
Instant payments is one of the Bank of Lithuania’s strategic directions, emphasised also in the National Payments Strategy, which is aimed at increasing the scope of electronic payments, encouraging competition within the payment services market, developing a payments infrastructure that would satisfy the needs of modern users.
It is expected that the measures laid down in the Strategy will encourage Lithuanian residents to pay using electronic means and that the number of electronic payment transactions per capita will more than double – to 300 transactions by 2020.