Czech Republic’s Real-Time Payments Adoption Slow Despite Promising Potential

More than 60 countries globally have adopted or are in the process of developing a national or regional real-time payments scheme, according to a recent PYMNTS study on instant payments.

In Europe, for example, the use of instant payments has grown significantly in recent years, with European Union countries developing schemes to ensure quick and seamless cross-border payments across the region.

One of the main continentwide systems that facilitate these payments is the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Instant Credit Transfer scheme, also known as SEPA Instant, which was launched in 2017 to enable fast euro payments across the 36 countries within the SEPA zone.

On a domestic level, some SEPA countries where the euro is not the local currency, such as the U.K., Sweden and the Czech Republic, have also developed payment systems to complement the existing pan-European scheme.

For the latter, also known as Czechia, its real-time payments journey began with the launch of the Czech Express Real-Time Interbank Gross Settlement (CERTIS) system back in 1992.

Currently the only interbank payment system in the central European country, the CERTIS system handles cashless payments in Czech koruna, including credit transfers and direct debits. And to be able to offer instant payment services to customers, a financial institution (FI) must not only be a CERTIS participant but join the domestic instant payment scheme.

As of Dec. 1, 2022, over 50 banks and payment service providers (PSPs) voluntarily participate in the instant payment system, according to data from the Czech National Bank, enabling one-off credit transfers of up to CZK 2,500,000 (about $115,000).

However, a lesser number of participating Czech FIs and PSPs (20 in total) have adhered to the SEPA Instant scheme as of March this year, per data from the European Payments Council (EPC)’s Register of Scheme Participants.

That, and the fact that real-time payments made up just 3.5% of the country’s payment transaction volume in 2021, signal a large untapped potential in the country’s real-time payments landscape.

This potential is reflected in PYMNTS research, which found that daily real-time payments volume in the country is projected to hit 662 million in 2026, up from 186 million in 2021, growing at an annual rate of 29%.

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