At Paymeeting18, one recurring question came from European attendees: what lessons can Europe take from Latin America’s rapid modernisation of payment infrastructures? While the region has made enormous progress with SEPA Instant (SCT Inst), direct SEPA Instant Connectivity remains uneven. Large institutions connect seamlessly to RT1 and TIPS, but smaller banks, EMIs and PSPs still face significant barriers.
The discussions highlighted that Europe, despite its advanced financial systems, shares many of the same challenges that Latin America faced: fragmented infrastructures, high entry costs, and slow integration processes. The opportunity is to learn from proven models abroad and apply a Modern Clearing Infrastructure blueprint to European needs.
SEPA Instant: Progress and Remaining Gaps
SEPA Instant (SCT Inst) has been a success in setting a clear standard: up to €100,000 transferred in less than 10 seconds, available every day of the year. By the end of 2024, more than 62% of European PSPs had joined the scheme. Yet adoption in daily practice lags behind. ECB data shows that only about 15% of credit transfers in the SEPA area are actually processed via SCT Inst.
Why? The answer lies in access and cost. Direct participation in RT1 or TIPS is technically demanding and resource-intensive. Smaller PSPs and EMIs often rely on sponsor banks for access. This creates dependencies that limit product innovation and add costs. For fintechs that operate with a cloud-native philosophy, this model is simply too slow.
A further challenge comes from inconsistent pricing. Some banks still charge additional fees for SCT Inst, discouraging consumer uptake. Others treat it as a premium product rather than a default service. This has created a patchwork of experiences across the eurozone, undermining the original vision of universal instant payments.
Lessons from Paymeeting18: Interoperability First
At Paymeeting18, experts emphasised that Europe should not underestimate the importance of interoperability in payments. Latin America showed that speed alone is not enough; systems must be able to interconnect seamlessly across institutions and networks.
Speakers pointed to the federated model discussed in detail during the event. Instead of forcing every participant into one centralised system, the federated approach builds a shared layer where banks, wallets, and fintechs can connect through APIs. This “network of networks” philosophy has proven its ability to scale while encouraging competition among participants.
Applied to Europe, this means PSPs and EMIs should not have to choose between sponsor banks or costly direct integrations. A more agile, federated approach can allow them to connect once and gain access to multiple settlement mechanisms, without being locked into legacy infrastructures.
The Minka Blueprint for SEPA
Minka’s Modern Clearing Infrastructure was presented at Paymeeting18 as an example of how this can be achieved. The architecture acts as a universal translator between modern APIs and legacy systems, allowing smaller players to connect through a single API instead of navigating the complexity of multiple CSMs.
This API-Driven Payment Gateway provides:
- A developer-first experience that reduces time-to-market.
- Real-time monitoring and reconciliation that meet regulatory and operational standards.
- Modular services, so PSPs and EMIs can adopt only what they need, from fraud prevention to compliance reporting.
- Cloud-native performance, proven in other markets, that scales elastically to meet transaction peaks.
At Paymeeting18, this blueprint resonated strongly with European participants, who recognised that while SEPA Instant is already established, the challenge lies in broadening access and reducing barriers for smaller, innovative institutions.
Regulation as the Catalyst
A major topic of discussion was regulation. In early 2024, the European Parliament and Council adopted the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR). This law requires all PSPs that provide euro credit transfers to also offer SCT Inst by the end of 2025.
This mandate has profound implications:
- Fees for instant payments must be the same as or lower than standard transfers.
- PSPs must ensure 24/7/365 availability, eliminating weekend and holiday gaps.
- Compliance will be mandatory, not optional, effectively closing the adoption gap.
At Paymeeting18, regulators noted that while the IPR sets the baseline, infrastructure providers and technology partners will play a decisive role in ensuring that compliance is not only possible but efficient. A Modern Clearing Infrastructure can help smaller PSPs meet these obligations without incurring prohibitive integration costs.
The Strategic Role of SEPA Instant Connectivity
Expanding SEPA Instant Connectivity is not just about technology. It is about competition and innovation in Europe’s payments market.
Without efficient access, smaller PSPs and EMIs face higher costs and longer development cycles. This limits their ability to launch new products like instant merchant settlements, payroll services, or embedded finance solutions. Consumers end up with fewer choices, and merchants continue to rely on slower settlement cycles.
With broad access, the benefits multiply: liquidity is improved for businesses, consumers gain certainty, and PSPs can innovate without structural barriers. Europe’s payments ecosystem is too competitive and too dynamic to allow connectivity to remain a bottleneck.
Security and Reliability: Non-Negotiables
One concern raised at Paymeeting18 was whether new access models could meet Europe’s high security and reliability standards. The response was clear: yes, provided the architecture is designed with these requirements at its core.
The same principles proven in Latin American deployments apply here:
- An immutable ledger ensures audibility and data integrity.
- Two-phase commit (intent and claim) provides transactional finality with a window for fraud checks.
- Cloud-native deployments offer resilience and scalability, meeting enterprise-grade requirements.
These are not experimental ideas but tested methods. The goal is not to compromise standards but to apply modern technology to deliver them more efficiently.
Europe in the Global Context
The Paymeeting18 discussions also put Europe’s challenges in a wider frame. While SEPA Instant is advanced, global peers are moving quickly:
- The US launched FedNow in 2023, aiming to bring real-time payments nationwide.
- India’s UPI processes billions of transactions monthly and has become a benchmark for interoperability.
- Australia’s New Payments Platform (NPP) is expanding with overlay services that enable innovation on top of the core infrastructure.
The consensus at the event was clear: Europe cannot afford to move slowly. To remain competitive globally, it must deliver not only universal SCT Inst adoption but also low-cost, developer-friendly access for innovators.
Conclusion: Europe’s Next Step
The European payments market is advanced, but access to SEPA Instant Connectivity remains uneven. At Paymeeting18, the call to action was clear: Europe can accelerate adoption by learning from international experience and by applying a Modern Clearing Infrastructure model that simplifies access for EMIs, PSPs, and smaller banks.
With the new Instant Payments Regulation forcing universal adoption by 2025, the opportunity is now. Europe has the chance to combine regulatory momentum with proven technical blueprints to create a more competitive, innovative, and inclusive ecosystem.
The result would be a payments landscape where instant transfers are not the privilege of large institutions but the baseline for everyone.
