Instant Payment is a type of payment that allows for the immediate and final transfer of money (in Swiss francs) from one account to another. Once the transfer order is initiated, the transaction is executed within 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. This means that the money is visible and available to the recipient of the payment within these 10 seconds.

To enable this, most banks in Switzerland need to expand their infrastructure accordingly. To support our banking customers in this process, we have developed and implemented a solution within our ti&m banking. With the implementation of Instant Payment, our customers can both receive and send payments. This feature is currently tailored to Avaloq banks with the Ergon solution cardX but can also be integrated with other SIC systems.

The major challenge in implementing Instant Payment is the requirement that payments be processed within 10 seconds and the function must be available around the clock. This requirement cannot be met by the common core banking systems in Switzerland. Due to this challenge, the customer interface - the e-banking - should be directly connected to the SIC network. This ensures the processing and display of Instant Payments even in the event of a core banking system outage, for example, due to maintenance work.

When receiving Instant Payments, ti&m banking communicates with both the core banking system and the SIC connection. Upon receiving a payment, a booking is created in the e-banking within 10 seconds. As long as the booking is only received by the SIC connection, it is treated as a "temporary" booking. This will be replaced once the final booking arrives in the core banking system. The booking is explicitly displayed to the user as an Instant Payment booking in the account movements. The user can also set whether a notification should be sent when a booking is received.

When sending Instant Payments, ti&m banking communicates directly with the SIC connection. First, the payment is checked against the criteria for Instant Payments. If these are not met, the user is shown a corresponding correction request. In the event of success, the user is shown the payment and the booking on the account directly. Here too, special emphasis is placed on the Instant Payment and the booking.

With the implementation of ti&m Banking, our customers can now execute payments in real-time 24/7/365 and thus fulfill their commitment to the innovative financial center of Switzerland.