Central Bank of Iceland Launches with SIA the New Interbank Payment System

The Central Bank of Iceland (CBI) and SIA have gone live with the new real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) and the new instant payment platform. From now on, CBI can rely on a more strategic and modern infrastructure for its high and low-value payment systems also enabling closer cooperation with other Central Banks, thanks to SIA’s groundbreaking technology and innovation. The Central Bank of Iceland manages all interbank payments in the country: it currently processes a fairly significant daily volume of transactions - up to 1 million payments with peaks of 160,000 per hour - despite the small population of just over 365,000 inhabitants. The new system has been developed in order to manage up to 5 million payments per day and each transaction is on average processed in less than 40 milliseconds. The launch of the new gross settlement system and the new instant payment platform puts the Central Bank of Iceland in a prominent position within the evolution of digital payment infrastructures. Indeed, CBI implemented an innovative single platform developed by SIA which processes all types of payments (Bank to Bank, P2P, P2B and B2B) resulting in a consolidated operating model and in a higher level of efficiency in the whole country. “An efficient and secure payment system is one of the prerequisites for smooth, normal business transactions in a modern economy. We need to use the best available tools at all times, and we are delighted with the implementation of the new interbank payment system from SIA,” says Sturla Pálsson, Director for Markets Department of the Central Bank of Iceland. “The successful go-live for the new interbank payment system of the Central Bank of Iceland confirms our strong partnership with Central Institutions to deliver secure, mission-critical and high-performance platforms and to enable challenging digital transformation programs in the payments ecosystem. SIA is continuously using its innovation capabilities to extend the opportunities for Central Institutions to target new frontiers of instant payments, interoperability with different market infrastructures and services, account to account payments and digital currencies” stated Eugenio Tornaghi, Marketing & Sales Director of SIA.