Central-bank access to T2
The European Central Bank disclosed on 30 October that the Governing Council had approved and the parties subsequently signed T2 Currency Participation Agreements involving Sveriges Riksbank and Danmarks Nationalbank. The Swedish agreement follows a positive Market Infrastructure Board assessment of Sveriges Riksbank’s onboarding to T2. Denmark’s existing agreement was updated to incorporate changes introduced through the Swedish onboarding process.
What the announcement does and does not change
T2 is the Eurosystem’s real-time gross-settlement service for central-bank money, used for monetary-policy, interbank and commercial transactions. The underlying approvals occurred on 21 October; the ECB published them in its 30 October decisions summary. The notice does not provide a go-live date, retail payment product or merchant integration requirement. Its significance is infrastructure-level: broader central-bank participation may support future cross-currency and regional settlement arrangements, but any merchant impact will depend on services later offered by banks and payment providers over that infrastructure.
What it means for merchants
Nordic merchants and PSPs should monitor their banks’ implementation plans and future cross-currency settlement services, but should not change treasury routing solely because participation agreements have been signed.
Read the original announcement
European Central Bank · 30 Oct 2026This brief summarizes the linked primary source. Claims and reported figures have not been independently audited by Payment Guide.