P27 banks stay committed to realizing the P27 vision after decisions by the Norwegian banking community
The collaboration, joint ambition, and strong commitment of the founding banks ensure P27 has the solid foundation required for realising the vision of an integrated, cross-border payment system for the 27 million people living in the Nordic region.
In the beginning of 2018, Project 27, or P27, came to live through a partnership of seven banks – Danske Bank, DNB, Handelsbanken, Nordea, OP Financial Group, SEB and Swedbank – with the goal of developing the world’s first ever cross-border and multi-currency payments platform for the benefit of end-users across the Nordics.
In the past year, P27 has made great strides towards achieving its vision. As key milestones, the P27 banks, in collaboration with the national banking communities, have designed a future-proof system tailored to Nordic needs, developed rulebooks based on global standards, outlined a governance structure for the future pan-Nordic infrastructure and conducted a rigorous vendor selection process.
On March 6, DNB’s Board, based on an overall assessment, made the decision to withdraw from the project. This was followed by a decision on March 7 by the Board of Finance Norway to stop further evaluation of P27 as an option for the Norwegian banking community.
The six other project banks have taken note of the decision by the Norwegian banking community, but remain committed to realizing the P27 vision. In the spring of 2019, the P27 banks plan to continue the work through the set-up of a limited company, to take the necessary next steps regarding permits from public authorities. This will mark a further milestone for P27 in the sponsor banks´ stride to establish the unified Nordic clearing service.
P27 will share more updates on the progress of the project work in the coming months in anticipation of the new infrastructure to go live in 2020.
The collaboration, joint ambition, and strong commitment of the founding banks ensure P27 has the solid foundation required for realising the vision of an integrated, cross-border payment system for the 27 million people living in the Nordic region.
P27 will enable real-time, batch, domestic and cross-border payments to be carried out quickly and at low cost on a secure and versatile platform. The platform will initially allow payments to flow instantly between people and businesses within the countries of Denmark, Finland and Sweden, something that will benefit growth and development in the region. The platform will be designed to be expandable to allow for payments across the rest of the Nordics as well, which will contribute to the strengthening of the Nordic payment’s ecosystem.
Lars Sjögren, CEO of P27 Nordic Payments Platform AB comments: “P27 will become the world’s first integrated domestic and cross border real-time payments platform. The Nordic banking sector already has a leading position in Europe, and P27 will help further expand and consolidate this position. Today’s decision from all of our owners demonstrates their commitment, belief, and support.”
Paula da Silva, Chairperson of the board of P27 Nordic Payments Platform AB comments: “This Nordic initiative was initiated in late 2017. The owners’ collaboration and commitment has been strong throughout the project and today’s announcement is evidence of their continued support.”
The P27 initiative started in 2017 as a joint Nordic bank project. In May 2019, an interim company was established. In June 2019, an agreement was signed with Mastercard to operate the payments platform. The aim for the initiative is to create one common state of the art payment platform for the Nordic countries. The next step for P27 is to obtain the necessary clearing licence and merger filing approvals, as well as continuing to develop the clearing platform together with Mastercard.
P27 Nordic Payments Platform AB, nordicpayments.eu, is a company owned by six of the largest banks in the Nordics, Danske Bank, Handelsbanken, Nordea, OP Financial Group, SEB and Swedbank. The aim is to create one common state of the art payment platform in the Nordic countries. The work started in late 2017 with the ambition to go live 2021. The launch of P27 services is subject to a merger filing and clearing licence approval. The name P27 derives from the number of citizens in the Nordic countries, 27 million individuals.