Stuttgart / Milan, 17 November 2015 – Instant Payment is a working reality in Italy where about 50 banks (13 bank groups) have joint the P2P “Jiffy” service, offering to their customers the possibility to send and receive money in real time through an app on their smartphone to and from their contacts. “Jiffy” is now targeting Germany on its march to success. In order to establish the service also in Germany, GFT Technologies SE and SIA S.p.A. are pooling their expertise and now launching a sales cooperation for the German market.
There are still no signs of a P2P payment service which can be easily used throughout Germany. In 2013, the Italian payment service provider SIA developed “Jiffy” together with GFT, the IT specialist for the financial industry. The system associates the phone number to the IBAN code of the account and enables the user – as with WhatsApp – to select a receiver from the personal contacts on the smartphone. After entering the amount and a text message (if required), easily click to complete the send operation.
The person-to-person service is compliant with the European Retail Payment Board (ERPB) recommendations on instant payments. Based on SEPA credit transfer, Jiffy is opened to all banks operating in the Single Euro Payment Area and potentially useable by over 400 million European current account holders. So, it can be introduced with a limited effort, leveraging on the existent banking infrastructure. Jiffy is available for smartphones using Android, iOS and Windows Phone operating systems and is distinguished by its speed and user-friendliness.