Central Bank of the Republic of Kosovo signs letter of intent with the Bank of Italy to launch a TIPS Clone instant payments project

The Central Bank of the Republic of Kosovo has signed a letter of intent with the Bank of Italy and the central banks of Albania, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to launch an instant payments project built on a “TIPS Clone” platform. Under the arrangement, the Bank of Italy, with approval from the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, will develop the infrastructure drawing on its role as developer and operator of the Eurosystem’s TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) service. The platform is intended to enable 24/7 account-to-account transfers within seconds, starting with domestic instant payments between payment service providers. The Central Bank of the Republic of Kosovo also indicated it will develop complementary infrastructure to support new payment instruments, with the aim of reducing cash usage and transaction costs, and expects the system to be kept aligned with future developments in the European Union framework. Based on the agreed planning, the system is expected to be ready within 18 months from the start of implementation, with each participating country responsible for the necessary preparations to connect and bring it into operation. After Kosovo’s entry into the Single Euro Payments Area, the project is intended to support cross-border payments and ultimately connect to European Union payment systems.