A pan-European automated clearing house (PE-ACH) is a
clearing house
Clearing house or Clearinghouse may refer to:
Banking and finance
* Clearing house (finance)
* Automated clearing house
* ACH Network, an electronic network for financial transactions in the U.S.
* Bankers' clearing house
* Cheque clearing
* Cl ...
that is able to settle
SEPA compliant credit transfers and direct debits across the
Euro
The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...
zone.
At present there is only one PE-ACH in operation –
STEP2 – which was established by the
Euro Banking Association
The Euro Banking Association (EBA) is an industry forum for the European payments industry with close to 200 member banks and organisations from the European Union and around the world aimed at fostering and driving pan-European payment initiativ ...
in April 2003. According to a survey done by Equens, in the future PE-ACH might be less relevant as banks will settle their transactions via multiple clearing houses
rather than using one central clearing house.
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Payment networks
Banking technology
Banking in the European Union
Eurozone
Payment clearing systems