The pan-European Automated Clearing House (PEACH) is a business platform for the provision of euro retail payment instruments and basic related services, made up of governance rules and payment practices and supported by the necessary technical platform(s). This definition was given by the European Payment Council (EPC) at its 28 January 2003 Plenary meeting, when the new model was proposed. The main objective was to facilitate and reduce the costs related to euro retail payments in the view of the creation of the SEPA. In particular, the most important feature of the new model is that any beneficiary of credit transfers and direct debits in the Eurozone can be reached by using SEPA instruments. This model, the pan-European ACH (PEACH), is one infrastructure but not necessarily a single system, although it has been defined as a tool to be expanded to other service providers. However, since its introduction, STEP2 has been the only PEACH operating in the Eurozone. It was established by the Euro Banking Association (EBA) in April 2003.

Editor: Bianca GIANNINI
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