Luxembourg based global financial infrastructure provider, Banking Circle, has joined the P27 Nordic payment initiative as a frontrunner bank in creating bulk-clearing for the Danish Krone, underlining its commitment to building a global payments infrastructure. P27 has been acknowledged as a vital initiative to address the disparate clearing systems currently operating across the Nordic region. Banking Circle sees its membership of P27 as a crucial piece in the jigsaw to remove the cost and time currently experienced in domestic and cross border payments to and from the region. 
 
P27, named for the 27 million people it will serve in the Nordic region, is an initiative between several leading banks that all share a common goal to create the world’s first digital platform through which businesses and consumers can make real-time, domestic and cross border payments. Like Banking Circle, P27 believes payments should be faster and cheaper and that collaboration is the way this can be achieved.  
 
Banking Circle holds an important role in the initiative, as a driving force in the creation of clearing for the Danish Krone.  
 
Anders la Cour, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Banking Circle commented: “At Banking Circle we have a vision to offer a global financial infrastructure to Payments businesses and Banks serving the e-commerce marketplace that is simple, fast and low cost. We are already heavily committed to achieving this goal having secured our Banking Licence in 2019 and with sustained investment in integrating a vast network of local clearing and payments schemes.  
 
“Our membership of P27 means we are tackling another region in the global economy. Banking Circle is already an active member in the Nordic community and a member of the Nordic Payments Council. Joining P27 was, therefore, the next natural step for us. As part of this initiative we will be able to provide our Bank and Payments business partners with the ability to offer their customers faster, easier and lower cost payments to and from the region.” 

Martin Georgzén, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Business Execution of P27 added: “P27 is an extension of the Nordic tradition of technological innovation and cooperation seen across industries including banking. We are connecting our collective resources, competence, and ambition to create a platform that really will transform payments for everyone in the region. By aligning our standards with this of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), P27 will bring further harmonisation to the overall European payments landscape. 

“Joining the P27 partnership, Banking Circle is demonstrating its commitment to supporting new development in the payment space that is for the good of the region as a whole. Banking Circle shares our vision for better payments provision, and we look forward to working together on the journey towards making cross border payments as easy as sending a text message.” 
 
Today, Banking Circle delivers access to 12 local clearing schemes through a combination of direct clearing and partner banks. In 2020 it processed 6% of European B2C e-commerce payments and EUR 155bn of payments volume.