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TIPS onboarding

Are you looking for a way to offer instant payments to all your customers? TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) ensures that payments reach any recipient in Europe within seconds, irrespective of the opening hours of their local bank.

Why join TIPS?

Pan-European reachability

All payment service providers (PSPs) in the euro area that participate in the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme can be reached in or via TIPS. They can connect to TIPS directly as a participant or indirectly as a reachable party. Alternatively, they can access TIPS via an automated clearing house (ACH).

High performance and efficiency

TIPS is capable of processing 2,000 transactions per second and its capacity can be increased. PSPs benefit from a single liquidity pool and a set of components that are shared with other TARGET Services.

Multi-currency

TIPS settles instant payments in euro and in Swedish kronor. Sveriges Riksbank is the first non-euro area central bank to join the service with its own currency. It has done so by connecting the Swedish real-time gross settlement system (RIX) and TIPS. Danmarks Nationalbank is also preparing to onboard to TIPS, and Norway and Iceland have shown interest in joining.

Single pool of central bank money

TIPS account balances count towards minimum reserve requirements related to the Eurosystem monetary policy. They are also taken into account when evaluating recourse to automatic marginal lending. The centralised tool across all TARGET Services allows participants to steer, manage and monitor their liquidity in central bank money.

Value added functionalities

PSPs using TIPS have the option to offer their clients Mobile Proxy Lookup (MPL). MPL makes it easier for customers to send and receive instant payments where the receiver is identified only by a proxy - a mobile number.

Choices to be made before starting the onboarding process

  1. How to participate: Join TIPS as direct participant (with your own TIPS account) or as a reachable party (able to settle payments via a direct participant’s account).
  2. How to exchange SCT Inst payment transaction messages with the TIPS platform: Banks and other PSPs can either be in control of the messaging exchange themselves or delegate it to an “instructing party” of their choice.
  3. What application channel to use: By default, TIPS is accessed using an application-to-application (A2A) channel. It is also possible to access TIPS via a user-to-application (U2A) channel which offers user-friendly access via a graphical user interface (GUI). 

Onboarding process for direct participants

  1. Preparation: Get in touch with your national central bank (NCB) to request registration forms and documentation. Discuss the options for connecting to TIPS and draw up a plan. 
  2. Connectivity to TIPS: Select the network service provider (NSP) you wish to use to connect to TIPS. Currently, SWIFT and Nexi-Colt (formerly SIA-Colt) are the only NSPs authorised to provide this service. Both have a significant share of the market; check their offer for connectivity services.
  3. Reference data set-up: NCBs will set up the participants’ reference data in the Common Reference Data Management (CRDM). Set up your message subscription and report configuration.
  4. Testing and certification: Test the system and obtain certification by completing a minimum set of certification test cases. Submit the evidence (screenshots and files) to your NCB, which will issue the TIPS certificate after successful evaluation of the evidence provided. Once certified, you can, together with your NCB, set a date to start using the platform.

The onboarding process for direct participants illustrated below can be started any time of the year.

Indicative timeline for onboarding to TIPS 

*Estimated time for onboarding to TIPS is 6 months. Additional time to onboard depends on the duration of step 2.

Key contacts

  • Reach out to your NCB to assist with your onboarding
  • Contact TIPS@ecb.europa.eu for questions on the onboarding process

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