Ridgeford holds euro accounts across the whole single-currency area — twenty-one members since Bulgaria joined on 1 January 2026. One IBAN, one supervisor, one deposit-protection scheme, and the same price whether the money goes to the next street or to Nicosia.Euro accounts across all twenty-one members of the single-currency area. One IBAN, one price, wherever it goes.
Regulation (EU) 2024/886 has obliged every euro-area bank to send instant transfers since 9 October 2025, to price them no higher than a standard transfer, and to check the payee's name against the IBAN before you authorise. We do all three because it is the law, not because it is a feature.Instant euro transfers in under ten seconds, 24/7, at no extra cost — and a free name check before every one.
We sit in the Bahnhofsviertel, on the street that runs from the Hauptbahnhof into the Innenstadt — a short walk from the Eurotower, where the European Central Bank supervises banks like this one, and from the Börsenplatz. Proximity to the supervisor is not a boast. It is simply where this business is done.Kaiserstraße 16, Bahnhofsviertel — a short walk from the Eurotower and the Börsenplatz.
A Friday-evening invoice used to mean the supplier waited until Monday. That is over. Since 9 October 2025 every euro-area bank has been legally required to move euros in under ten seconds at any hour, charge no more for it than for the slow version, and check the payee's name against the IBAN first. Below is what happens in those ten seconds, in order, with nothing left out.
0,0 s
0,0 s
Instruction
You confirm in-app. Strong customer authentication under PSD2 — two factors, one of them dynamic.
0,4 s
Verification of Payee
The payee's name is checked against the IBAN at the receiving bank. Three answers: match, close match, no match. Free of charge — Art. 5c IPR.
1,2 s
Sanctions posture
Customers are screened daily against EU restrictive-measures lists. Transaction-level screening is deliberately not permitted to hold up the payment.
3,8 s
Settlement
Cleared over TIPS or RT1 in central bank money. No batching, no cut-off, no value dating.
< 10 s
Credited
Funds available to the payee and confirmation returned to us. The ten-second ceiling is the law, not a service level we chose.
SEPA Instant
Under 10 seconds, 24/7/365
Reg. (EU) 2024/886, in force for euro-area banks since 9 Oct 2025
Price parity
Never more than a standard transfer
Art. 5b — an instant credit transfer may not cost more than a classic SCT
Amount ceiling
None at scheme level
The old 100,000 € cap was removed from the SCT Inst rulebook
Verification of Payee
Free, on every euro transfer
Applies to SCT and SCT Inst alike across the EEA
Structured addresses
ISO 20022 from November 2026
Unstructured address fields stop being accepted in payment messages
Outside the euro
SWIFT, same day where cut-offs allow
Correspondent charges disclosed before you confirm, never after
Instant transfers settle over TIPS or RT1 in central bank money. Electronic money institutions and payment institutions come into scope on 9 April 2027; non-euro-area providers on 9 July 2027.
POLICY2,25 %Governing Council holds after June's hike·POLICY+25 bpFirst rate rise in nearly three years·PRICES2,9 %July inflation confirmed at 2,9 %·RAILSName checks became mandatory on every euro transfer·CURRENCY36Thirty-six providers picked for the digital euro pilot·CURRENCY21Bulgaria takes the euro area to twenty-one·SUPERVISIONDigital euro heads into trilogue·PRICES+0,4 %Euro area GDP up 0,4 % on the quarter·POLICY10 SEPNext Governing Council decision·PRICES+10,0 %Energy is doing almost all of the work·PRICES1,8 ppTwenty-one countries, one policy rate·RAILS2027The next wave of the instant mandate·RAILSStructured addresses become mandatory·SUPERVISION~70 %Seventy per cent of European card payments leave Europe to be processed·RAILS~5 sTIPS now clears in about five seconds end to end·SUPERVISIONWhy the name check arrived when it did·CURRENCYCash is still legal tender, and the ECB keeps saying so·PRICESNegotiated wage growth keeps cooling·RAILS≈ €2 tnT2 moves roughly two trillion euro a day·SUPERVISIONMiCA is fully in force across the bloc·CURRENCYWhat changed in Sofia overnight·SUPERVISIONPSD3 is still in negotiation·POLICY2,25 %Governing Council holds after June's hike·POLICY+25 bpFirst rate rise in nearly three years·PRICES2,9 %July inflation confirmed at 2,9 %·RAILSName checks became mandatory on every euro transfer·CURRENCY36Thirty-six providers picked for the digital euro pilot·CURRENCY21Bulgaria takes the euro area to twenty-one·SUPERVISIONDigital euro heads into trilogue·PRICES+0,4 %Euro area GDP up 0,4 % on the quarter·POLICY10 SEPNext Governing Council decision·PRICES+10,0 %Energy is doing almost all of the work·PRICES1,8 ppTwenty-one countries, one policy rate·RAILS2027The next wave of the instant mandate·RAILSStructured addresses become mandatory·SUPERVISION~70 %Seventy per cent of European card payments leave Europe to be processed·RAILS~5 sTIPS now clears in about five seconds end to end·SUPERVISIONWhy the name check arrived when it did·CURRENCYCash is still legal tender, and the ECB keeps saying so·PRICESNegotiated wage growth keeps cooling·RAILS≈ €2 tnT2 moves roughly two trillion euro a day·SUPERVISIONMiCA is fully in force across the bloc·CURRENCYWhat changed in Sofia overnight·SUPERVISIONPSD3 is still in negotiation·
02 — The wire
What moved in Europe
Every figure below links back to the ECB, Eurostat or the EPC document it came from. We are not going to summarise a central bank at you and hope you take our word for the number — the primary source is one tap away and you should use it. Positions as of 23 August 2026.
2,25 %Deposit facility rate — the steering rate since March 2024
Governing Council holds after June's hike
The deposit facility stays at 2,25 %, main refinancing at 2,40 %, marginal lending at 2,65 %. The Council said the energy shock's full inflationary effect has yet to play out and that it is watching both the intensity and the duration of it. Next decision 10 September.
The Council lifted all three key rates by 25 basis points, the first increase since September 2023, citing inflation pressure from the conflict in the Middle East. Eurosystem staff put headline inflation at 3,0 % for 2026, 2,3 % for 2027 and back at target in 2028.
Up from 2,8 % in June. Energy carried it at 10,0 % year on year, services at 3,3 %. Lowest prints in Sweden (0,3 %) and Czechia (1,3 %); highest in Romania (8,2 %) and Lithuania (5,4 %). Core ticked up to 2,5 %.
Name checks became mandatory on every euro transfer
Verification of Payee has applied to all SEPA credit transfers and instant transfers inside the EEA since last October, free of charge to the payer. The check returns match, close match or no match — and a warning never blocks you, it informs you before you authorise.
Thirty-six providers picked for the digital euro pilot
More than fifty payment service providers applied after March's call; thirty-six were selected across the euro area. The twelve-month pilot runs from the second half of 2027 on a beta build with no legal-tender status. Issuance stays contingent on the regulation, which the Eurosystem expects adopted by end-2026 for a possible 2029 launch.
Eurostat's aggregate series switched from EA20 to EA21 on accession, chain-linked so the history stays comparable. Sofia's accounts came into scope of the same instant-payment obligations as every other euro member.
Parliament adopted its position in July, the Council having agreed its mandate in December. Both sides back an online and an offline version, with the offline one designed to behave like cash. What remains contested is precisely which personal data may be processed, and where the holding limits land.
A flash estimate, following a flat first quarter. Goods trade with the rest of the world showed an 8,6 bn € surplus in June, against 4,8 bn € a year earlier.
Announced at 14:15 CET, press conference at 14:45. Markets went into August pricing roughly even odds on a further hike, having read June's move as the opening of a phase rather than a one-off. Remaining 2026 dates: 29 October and 17 December.
At 10,0 % year on year, energy alone contributed 0,94 percentage points of July's 2,9 % print, with services adding 1,55. Strip both out and the picture is far quieter — the ex-energy index has sat between 2,2 % and 2,4 % all year.
1,8 ppSpread between the highest and lowest euro-area print
Twenty-one countries, one policy rate
July's national prints ran from 2,0 % in Estonia to 3,8 % in Spain, with Germany at 2,8 %, France at 2,4 % and Italy at 2,9 %. The single rate set in Frankfurt has to fit all of them at once, which is the permanent difficulty of the euro and the reason the Council moves slowly.
Electronic money institutions and payment institutions must send and receive instant euro payments from April 2027; providers in non-euro EU states follow on 9 July 2027. Banks in the euro area — us included — have been in scope since October 2025.
From November, payment messages must carry ISO 20022 structured address fields — separate street, building number, postal code and town rather than free text. Unstructured addresses start being rejected, which is a quiet deadline with loud consequences for anyone still mapping legacy formats.
~70 %Card transactions cleared on non-European infrastructure
Seventy per cent of European card payments leave Europe to be processed
The dependence on Visa and Mastercard rails is the stated strategic reason behind the digital euro, alongside the decline of cash. The draft regulation puts caps on merchant fees and obliges banks to distribute it — both still contested in trilogue.
The Eurosystem's instant settlement service runs continuously in central bank money, which is why an instant euro payment has no counterparty risk sitting between the two banks. Volumes roughly tripled through 2025 as the send mandate bit.
Authorised push payment fraud — where the payer is tricked into sending the money themselves — became the single largest category of payment fraud in Europe. Verification of Payee exists because sanctions screening and 3-D Secure do nothing about a payment you made on purpose to the wrong person.
Cash is still legal tender, and the ECB keeps saying so
The digital euro regulation runs alongside a second file guaranteeing the acceptance and availability of banknotes. The Eurosystem's line has been consistent: a digital euro is an addition to cash, not its replacement — partly to answer exactly the objection you would expect.
The Council has leaned on wage settlements as the signal for whether an energy shock turns into a wage-price spiral. Second-round effects have stayed contained so far, which is the stated reason July was a hold rather than a second hike.
The Eurosystem's large-value system settles the interbank leg of almost everything — securities, FX, the balances behind your card payments. Your ten-second transfer is the retail surface of a machine most people never see.
Markets in Crypto-Assets now governs issuance and service provision euro-area wide, with stablecoin issuers under reserve and redemption obligations. It is the reason a bank can run a digital-asset desk in Europe at all — and the reason the disclosures on ours are as blunt as they are.
Bulgarian accounts were redenominated at the fixed conversion rate, dual pricing ran either side of the switch, and the lev's thirty-year currency board ended. Bulgarian banks came into scope of the same instant-payment obligations as every other euro member on day one.
The successor to PSD2 folds the conduct rules into a directly applicable regulation and tightens fraud liability where a bank's own name was spoofed. Nothing is in force yet; the current rulebook is still PSD2, which is what the two-factor step on every payment here comes from.
July's inflation print ran from 2,0 % in Estonia to 3,8 % in Spain — one policy rate, twenty-one very different economies, which is the permanent difficulty of the euro. What it means for you is simpler: a salary paid from Dublin and a landlord in Ljubljana both work against the same account number, and neither of them needs to know where you bank.
Bulgaria · Czechia · Denmark · Hungary · Iceland · Liechtenstein · Norway · Poland · Romania · Sweden · Switzerland · United Kingdom
Transfers to these countries settle in euro on SEPA rails. Local currency conversion, where you ask for it, is quoted against the ECB daily reference rate.
04 — The house
Kaiserstraße 16, Bahnhofsviertel
Kaiserstraße runs from the Hauptbahnhof straight into the Innenstadt, past kebab shops, a casino, three of the biggest banks in Europe and the odd cocktail bar that used to be a pawn shop. The Bahnhofsviertel has never been tidy and has always been where the money is. We are at number 16, six hundred metres from the Eurotower — close enough that our supervisor could walk here.
Every capability below is printed with the constraint that comes with it. A feature list with no constraints in it is an advert, and you can read one of those anywhere.
Swipe 6 capabilities
Current and savings, one IBAN
A German IBAN that works identically in all twenty-one euro countries — no local account needed to be paid a Spanish salary or to pay a Dutch landlord. Direct debits, standing orders and salary credits all run on the same number.
IBAN
DE · 22 characters
Currency
EUR
Maintenance
0,00 €
Minimum balance
None
Spaces, for money with a job already
Sub-balances inside the same account — rent, tax, the deposit you are not allowed to touch. Money in a Space is still your money and still protected; it simply stops appearing in the balance you spend from.
Sub-balances
Unlimited
Interest
Tracks the account
Protection
Same 100,000 €
Access
Instant, no notice
Cards, with the interchange stated
Contactless and virtual cards, no fee inside the euro area. Interchange on European consumer cards is capped by regulation at 0,2 % on debit and 0,3 % on credit — we mention it because most banks would rather you did not know the number.
Euro-area spend
0,00 €
Non-euro FX
0,35 % over ECB
Virtual cards
Included
ATM, EEA
Two free monthly
Transfers that tell you what they are doing
The country comes off the IBAN, the rail is picked from what the beneficiary can receive, and the name check runs before you authorise rather than after you regret. Where a correspondent bank will take a cut, we quote it up front instead of deducting it in transit.
Euro area
Instant · under 10 s
SEPA, non-euro
Next working day
Outside SEPA
SWIFT · 14,00 €
Name check
Free · every transfer
A digital-asset desk, priced honestly
Thirty assets, bought with the euro balance in your current account and sold back into it. The spread is 1,49 % and it is printed on the ticket before you confirm. Withdrawals to an external address are reviewed before they are broadcast, because a chain transfer cannot be recalled.
Assets
30
Spread
1,49 %
Settlement
From your euro balance
Protection
None — not a deposit
Authorisation you can feel
Strong customer authentication on every payment, as PSD2 requires: two factors, one of them dynamic. Large or outbound orders take a second code. It is marginally slower than a single tap, and that is the point.
Authentication
PSD2 SCA
Step-up
Over 1,000 €
Session
Signed, short-lived
Deposit cover
100,000 € · EdB
05 — The ledger
Every charge, on one page
No tiers, no “from” prices, no asterisk leading to a PDF. Instant transfers cannot legally cost more than standard ones, so they don't. Where somebody else takes a cut — a correspondent bank in the chain, an ATM operator in Lisbon — you see the number before you press send, not afterwards on the statement.
< 10 s
Instant settlement
Ceiling set by Reg. (EU) 2024/886
21
Euro-area countries
EA21 since 1 January 2026
100,000 €
Deposit protection
Per depositor, EdB statutory scheme
24/7/365
No cut-off
Instant rails do not observe banking hours
SEPA credit transfer
0,00 €
Euro, EEA, any amount. Sent and received.
SEPA Instant
0,00 €
Law forbids us charging more for it than for a standard transfer.
Verification of Payee
0,00 €
Free by statute. Runs on every euro transfer you send.
SWIFT, outbound
14,00 €
Plus correspondent charges, quoted to you before you confirm — never deducted silently.
Non-euro FX
0,35 %
Over the ECB daily reference rate. The rate and the spread are both shown on the ticket.
Card, euro area
0,00 €
Interchange is capped at 0,2 % debit / 0,3 % credit under Reg. (EU) 2015/751.
Cash withdrawal, EEA
Two free monthly
1,50 € thereafter. Third-party ATM operator fees are theirs, not ours.
Account maintenance
0,00 €
No minimum balance, no dormancy charge, no closure fee.
What this page is not
Nothing here is investment advice or an offer of credit. Deposit protection covers eligible deposits up to 100,000 € per depositor and does not extend to digital assets, which are not deposits and are not covered by any guarantee scheme. Interest rates quoted by the ECB are policy rates, not the rate on your account. Verification of Payee returns a warning, not a guarantee: a “match” result does not make a payment safe, and you remain responsible for who you pay.
07 — Open an account
Banking in euros, from Frankfurt
Verification takes about ten minutes and needs a photo ID and proof of address.
Compliance decides most files within one business day.
Your IBAN is issued on approval. Nothing is charged before then.
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