Key Facts for Greece
- Primary real-time rails: SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst), TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS), DIAS.
- Typical settlement times: Within 10 seconds.
- Common limits: Up to €100,000 per transaction; daily limits vary by institution.
What “real-time payments” means in Greece
In Greece, real-time payments are defined as electronic credit transfers available 24/7/365 that credit a payee’s account within 10 seconds. These transactions are part of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), allowing for both domestic and cross-border transfers up to €100,000 across 36 European countries. While some banks offer domestic-only instant services, the system's foundation is pan-European. The legal framework is not defined by a specific Greek law but by EU regulations, primarily Regulation (EU) 260/2012, which establishes the technical and business rules for all SEPA credit transfers.
The Bank of Greece is the primary national regulator, operating within the broader Eurosystem framework. The country’s main interbanking systems operator is DIAS, which connects the domestic financial system to the pan-European TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) service for clearing. While other automated clearing houses may participate, DIAS is the central infrastructure party. All transactions adhere to the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme, which mandates the use of the ISO 20022 XML messaging standard for formatting financial communications.
As an early adopter within the Eurosystem and a full participant in the pan-European TIPS network, Greece’s real-time payment infrastructure is fully aligned with leading global standards for speed, reach, and interoperability.
Payment Rail Overview
SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst)
The SCT Inst scheme, which went live in November 2017, provides the foundational rules for pan-European instant payments. It allows for real-time, transaction-level processing, ensuring funds are credited to a beneficiary's account in under 10 seconds. As the common standard, it guarantees interoperability between participating banks across 36 SEPA countries.
- Speed: Funds are made available to the recipient in a maximum of 10 seconds from initiation.
- Availability: The service operates 24/7/365, allowing for payments at any time, including weekends and holidays.
- Reach: The scheme is designed for pan-European interoperability, covering 36 countries in the Single Euro Payments Area.
- Transaction Limit: While the initial cap was €15,000, most Greek banks now support transfers up to €100,000 per transaction.
Pros and Cons
- Pros: Standardized rules across Europe, high transaction limits, and broad reach. LN-friendly routing possible.
- Cons: Limited to euro-denominated transactions and adoption can vary between individual financial institutions.
TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS)
Launched by the Eurosystem in November 2018, TIPS is the market infrastructure that provides real-time settlement for instant payments in central bank money. It functions as the backbone for the SCT Inst scheme, allowing payment providers to clear transactions instantly and securely across Europe. This system ensures that once a payment is settled, it is final and irrevocable.
- Central Bank Money Settlement: Transactions are settled in central bank money, which eliminates the credit risk between commercial banks.
- Pan-European Infrastructure: It was built specifically to support instant payments across the entire euro area, not just within national borders.
- High Security: The system adheres to the Eurosystem’s strict oversight framework for cyber resilience.
- Eco-Friendly: TIPS is designed for efficiency, producing significantly low carbon emissions compared to legacy payment systems.
Pros and Cons
- Pros: Extremely secure settlement, pan-European by design, and efficient operation. LN-friendly routing possible.
- Cons: Functions as a background infrastructure layer, so its benefits are not directly visible to end-users.
DIAS & IRIS
DIAS is Greece's national interbanking system, which fully connected to the TIPS network in December 2021 to facilitate instant payments. It serves as the central gateway for the Greek financial system, processing domestic transfers and linking them to the broader European network. Through its consumer-facing IRIS service, DIAS also offers simplified peer-to-peer payments using just a mobile number.
- National Gateway: DIAS acts as the primary connector for Greek banks, linking them to the pan-European TIPS settlement infrastructure.
- IRIS Payments: This user-friendly service allows individuals to send and receive money instantly using a recipient's mobile phone number, abstracting away the need for an IBAN.
- Cost Efficiency: By acting as an Instructing Party, DIAS provides smaller payment providers with cost-effective access to the TIPS network.
- Cross-Border Functionality: The connection to TIPS enables DIAS to process both domestic and cross-border SCT Inst payments seamlessly.
Pros and Cons
- Pros: Simplifies P2P payments for consumers via IRIS, provides cost-effective network access for banks, and is localized for the Greek market. LN-friendly routing possible.
- Cons: IRIS is primarily a domestic solution, though the underlying DIAS system connects to the wider SEPA network.
Limits, Fees, and SLAs
- Limits: Most banks support transfers up to €100,000 per transaction. Daily limits are not standardized, and no distinct corporate tiers are specified.
- Fee Structures: Senders may incur fees for outbound payments based on their bank's price list, while inbound transfers are generally free for the recipient.
- R2P Fees: Senders are typically charged for initiating payments according to their bank's price list. Specific request-to-pay fees are not detailed.
- Operating Hours: Services are available 24/7/365 through online and mobile banking. Branch transactions are limited to business hours with specific cut-off times.
- Failures & Returns: If a transaction fails, funds are refunded to the sender’s account within seconds. Procedures exist for handling payments with incorrect amounts.
Compliance and Risk
KYC/KYB & AML
Greece enforces strict AML/CTF rules based on EU directives and national law. Financial institutions must perform customer due diligence, verify identities, and report suspicious activity to the FIU. For businesses, identifying and registering the ultimate beneficial owner is mandatory.
Data Residency & Privacy
As an EU member, Greece operates under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). While no specific data residency laws are cited for payments, financial data is subject to strict processing controls, and government platforms handle sensitive information nationally.
Fraud Controls
Fraud prevention is integrated with AML obligations, with institutions monitoring for unusual patterns and reporting to the FIU. System-level security is high, with infrastructure like TIPS adhering to strict resilience standards against cyber-attacks.
Recordkeeping & Audits
Regulated firms must retain all customer due diligence, identity verification, and transaction documents for a minimum of five years. This retention period supports regulatory supervision and facilitates investigations into illicit financial activity.
Lightning Network Integration as a Solution
The Lightning Network is a second-layer protocol on Bitcoin that processes transactions off-chain in private payment channels. This design allows it to function as a global settlement fabric, complementing regional real-time payment systems like SEPA. Where local rails are confined by geography or currency, the Lightning Network offers a universal, interoperable alternative for instant, borderless value transfer. It extends the reach of real-time payments to a worldwide scale.
While Greek RTPs settle in under 10 seconds, Lightning transactions are near-instant. Costs are also a key differentiator; Lightning payments can be fractions of a cent, making microtransactions practical. But its primary advantage is reach. Unlike the 36-country SEPA system, the Lightning Network is inherently global, connecting users across any border without intermediaries and offering a truly worldwide payment solution.
- Cross-Border Complexity: It removes the need for correspondent banks and currency conversion processes, reducing the cost and settlement time for international payments.
- Scalability and Cost Barriers: By processing transactions off-chain, it supports a massive volume of payments with negligible fees, making micropayments for digital content or services economically viable.
- Limited Financial Access: It provides a payment rail for new markets and underbanked regions where traditional banking infrastructure is expensive or unavailable, requiring only an internet connection.
Integrating this technology offers a pathway to a more open, efficient, and globally connected financial future.
B2B Enterprise Use Cases
- Supplier Payments – A company pays its international suppliers instantly over the Lightning Network, with funds settling in the supplier's local currency via an exchange.
“Business value:” Eliminates cross-border payment delays and reduces supply chain friction. - Merchant Settlement – A retailer receives customer payments via Lightning and automatically settles funds into their corporate bank account through a real-time payment rail like SCT Inst.
“Business value:” Provides immediate access to sales revenue and improves daily cash flow. - Treasury Optimization – A corporate treasury moves liquidity between international subsidiaries 24/7, bypassing traditional banking hours and correspondent bank systems.
“Business value:” Creates a global, always-on liquidity system for maximum capital efficiency. - Global Payroll – A company pays its remote workforce or gig workers instantly using Lightning, allowing for flexible, on-demand wage disbursement across borders.
“Business value:” Attracts top talent with instant, low-cost salary payments. - Digital Content Monetization – A streaming platform processes per-second micropayments from viewers globally for pay-as-you-go content access.
“Business value:” Opens new revenue models based on granular, real-time content consumption.
Cross-Border Transactions and Remittances to Greece
Cross-border real-time payments are challenging due to regulatory friction and technical fragmentation. Reaching Greece from outside the Eurozone requires bridging disparate payment rails and navigating complex foreign exchange paths, which adds cost and delay. Even within SEPA, varying institutional rules and strict AML/KYC requirements introduce operational hurdles. This complex web of compliance checks, rail bridging, and currency conversions makes truly instant global payments difficult with legacy systems.
- Germany to Greece: As a major intra-EU corridor, payments are processed through SEPA Instant. Euro-denominated remittances up to €100,000 settle in seconds without currency conversion, benefiting from the harmonized regulatory framework.
- USA to Greece: This corridor relies on traditional correspondent banking networks, resulting in higher fees and settlement times of several days. Transactions require costly FX conversion from USD to EUR, adding significant friction to the process.
- India to Greece: Payments between these countries face high operational costs and potential delays due to stringent due diligence requirements. Transactions typically move through slow and expensive banking rails involving multiple intermediaries and INR to EUR currency conversion.
The Lightning Network bypasses the intermediaries and complex FX processes of traditional cross-border payments. By settling transactions instantly over a single, global network, it dramatically reduces both the time and high fees associated with correspondent banking and currency exchange.
How Lightspark Makes Integration Easy
Lightspark helps fintechs, digital banks, wallets, and exchanges connect to the Lightning Network by abstracting away its operational complexities. We manage the difficult parts—from dynamic liquidity and optimized routing to built-in compliance screening—so you can focus on your product. Our comprehensive developer tooling and APIs are designed for rapid integration, allowing you to offer global, sub-second settlement without building the infrastructure from scratch. To see how you can expand your payment capabilities, Talk to our team.
