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Banca d'Italia is one of the Eurosystem's four providing central banks (4CB) for the TARGET Services (T2, T2S, TIPS) and the sole developer/operator of TIPS. Following the Instant Payments Regulation's amendment of the Settlement Finality Directive, non-bank PSPs (Italian IPs and IMELs) gained the right to direct access to T2 and TIPS as of 6 October 2025 (ECB Guideline ECB/2025/28), though the Eurosystem will not permit central-bank accounts to be used for safeguarding client funds.
Outlook
The bank-versus-non-bank access asymmetry persists in modified form: non-banks now reach TARGET directly but remain excluded from central-bank safeguarding, an unresolved structural gap worth tracking as non-bank PSP TARGET participation grows.
Correspondent Banking, Settlement & Access
The analytical spine of Italy's correspondent-banking and settlement picture this cycle is the reachability requirement now binding on PSPs adhering to SCT Inst. All PSPs that adhere to SCT Inst and are reachable in the T2 RTGS system must now be reachable in TIPS, the Eurosystem's instant-settlement infrastructure, either as a direct participant or via a reachable-party arrangement with another institution. This is a Confirmed-confidence finding drawn from a Tier-1 Banca d'Italia primary source, and it captures precisely the bank-versus-non-bank access asymmetry that structures correspondent-banking analysis generally: a bank PSP with T2 RTGS reachability faces a direct path to TIPS participation, while a non-bank PSP or EMI without direct RTGS reachability must secure a reachable-party arrangement through a correspondent bank, introducing a dependency and potential access bottleneck that direct participants do not face.
TIPS itself settles instant payments in central-bank money at an average Eurosystem-wide throughput of 500 payments per second, with BANCOMAT identified as the key Italian domestic-scheme participant in this settlement infrastructure. This is a Confirmed-confidence, Tier-1-sourced finding. Layered on top of this settlement-infrastructure picture is Italy's fragmented domestic scheme landscape: BANCOMAT (approximately 36 million cards), MyBank (an open-banking account-to-account scheme), and PostePay (approximately 28 million cards) each represent locally distinctive access points, a Probable-confidence, Tier-4-sourced finding relevant to any institution mapping correspondent and settlement access into the Italian market.
Taken together, these findings describe a settlement environment where direct TIPS reachability is increasingly the norm for T2-RTGS-reachable institutions, while non-bank PSPs and EMIs continue to depend on correspondent relationships for the same functional access, a structural asymmetry with direct implications for settlement risk, cost, and operational resilience planning.
Outlook
Watch for any consolidation or interoperability development among Italy's fragmented domestic schemes (BANCOMAT, MyBank, PostePay) as instant-payment volumes grow, and for whether reachable-party arrangements for non-bank PSPs show any signs of concentration risk as TIPS reachability becomes near-universal among direct T2 RTGS participants.
Sources and findings (4)
- T1https://www.bancaditalia.it/compiti/sistema-pagamenti/target2/index.html Applies beyond this jurisdiction (EU)
- T3https://inventi.io/news/non-bank-psps-gain-direct-access-to-target2-services/ Applies beyond this jurisdiction (EU)retrieved
- T1https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/intro/news/html/ecb.mipnews20240719.en.html Applies beyond this jurisdiction (EU)retrieved
- T1https://www.bancaditalia.it/compiti/sistema-pagamenti/security-target2/index.html Applies beyond this jurisdiction (EU)