Bank of Italy launches TIPS Clone instant payments settlement platform for Western Balkans, with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro joining first

Bank of Italy has announced that the TIPS Clone platform for instant payment settlement has gone live and is now available to Western Balkan countries. The new infrastructure, developed by Bank of Italy, allows real-time settlement of instant payments in participating countries' currencies in central bank money and in euro in commercial bank money. The Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Central Bank of Montenegro are the first institutions to connect. The platform uses the same technology as TARGET Instant Payment Settlement, the Eurosystem instant payments infrastructure operated by Bank of Italy, while remaining a standalone system. This gives participating central banks access to the functionalities already available in TIPS, with future Eurosystem developments and innovations also expected to be incorporated. The initiative was launched by Bank of Italy with support from the European Central Bank and the Eurosystem as part of wider cooperation with the Western Balkans. A second onboarding window is scheduled for November 2026, when the central banks of Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia are expected to join, which would bring all countries participating in the initiative onto the platform.