In 1993, as the
Maastricht Treaty entered into force, central banks of the EU agreed that all of them should have an
real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system, as some had already done in the previous decade. In 1995, they decided to interlink these national infrastructures through a pan-European system that they called TARGET. That original TARGET system duly began operations on . Its first version had a decentralized structure that consisted of the national RTGS systems of the 12 euro area member states plus those of Denmark (KRONOS), Sweden (E-RIX), and the UK (CHAPS) together with the ECB Payment Mechanism (EPM). On ,
Poland was the first new EU member state following the
2004 enlargement to connect to TARGET, via its SORBNET-EURO RTGS system operated by the
National Bank of Poland. The first TARGET was replaced with
TARGET2, a more centralized system based on a Single Shared Platform (SSP), in stages from November 2007 to May 2008. whereas Sweden and the UK did not. On , Romania also connected to TARGET2. In June 2015, TARGET2 participants were first allowed to open a Dedicated Cash Account (DCA) on the T2S platform, marking the start of the T2S service. TIPS was introduced in November 2018. On , Sweden completed its integration into TIPS, allowing for TIPS to also settle instant payments in
Swedish kronas. TARGET2 was replaced with T2 in March 2023. T2 and TIPS will also allow settlements of DKK payments in March 2025. In 2024, EU adopted Instant Payments Regulation. This legislation allowed
non-bank financial institutions (for example,
EMIs) to access central bank-operated payment systems, including TARGET. In order to do that, payment service providers (PSPs) need to meet the operational and technical requirements applicable to participants TARGET. This initiative allows non-bank PSPs to access services that previously were only available to traditional banks, like an option to safeguard users’ funds in an account held with a central bank. ==Legal structure==