Instant payment orders now available for SEB Bank customers

Starting from May 7th, SEB Bank customers can execute instant payments in euro to accounts with other banks. Instant payments enable to transfer funds to accounts with various banks in Lithuania, European Union and European Economic Area instantaneously 24 hours a day, including weekends and public holidays. SEB Bank was the first in Lithuania to offer the instant payments crediting service in Lithuania in the autumn of 2018, and from now on customers will be able to initiate such payments also on their own.

“From now on, SEB Bank customers will be able to transfer funds to other banks also on Christmas or Easter days or public holidays, on weekends or after office hours when usually funds in euro (SEPA) are not transferred. Instant payments are executed anytime 24 hours a day, be it a working day, a weekend or a public holiday, and funds will reach payee accounts faster than in 10 seconds,” says Vaidas Žagūnis, Member of the Management Board of SEB Bank and Head of the Retail Banking Division, commenting changes in the area of payments.

The representative of SEB Bank maintains that availability of the instant payments service is important for the majority of both private individual and corporate customers of the bank. “For corporate customers, who communicate with their partners and suppliers in foreign countries, this is particularly important news. So far, money transfers to another bank used to take a few hours or even days, whereas now money transfer in an amount up to EUR 15 thousand to another bank will be executed instantaneously,” V. Žagūnis comments.

The possibility of instant payments should increase the popularity of electronic payments still further also among local population, as settlement with natural persons will be still more simple. “In case of settlement between natural persons, e.g. when buying through an advertisement portal or when buying a car at a market place, sellers are willing to be paid immediately, therefore, often a buyer has no other choice and pays in cash. Thus, the possibility to pay for goods or services by instant money transfer to seller accounts will be particularly attractive to customers who are used to use electronic payment methods   and who felt a lack of this possibility”, notes the Head of the Retail Banking Division.

If an amount to be transferred is more than EUR 15 thousand, funds will be transferred under a usual SEPA payment order. Funds will be transferred as a usual SEPA payment also in cases where the payee bank does not offer its customers the possibility to receive funds under instant payment orders.

SEB Bank customers may submit their payment orders on the Internet Bank and using mobile app. The cost of an instant payment for customers will be equivalent to that of the usual SEPA payment in euro, and subscribers to service plans will have a possibility to execute instant payments free of charge for a fixed number of times per month or without any limit – according to the plan they have chosen.