In 2025, the Czech Express Real Time Interbank Gross Settlement system crossed a historic threshold, processing 1.044 billion accounting transactions and exceeding one billion for the first time in the system's 24-year history. The milestone represents a 6.2 percent increase from the 983 million transactions processed in 2024, even as the total settled value declined slightly to CZK 378 trillion from CZK 386.5 trillion the prior year.
The divergence between rising transaction counts and falling total value reflects a structural shift in the Czech payments landscape. Instant payments, introduced within the CERTIS infrastructure alongside traditional batch processing, have gained rapid adoption. By December 2025, an average of 2.03 million instant payments were processed daily, meaning that one in every three interbank payments in the Czech Republic was settled in seconds rather than accumulated in batch cycles.
CERTIS operates on a distinctive single-platform model in which both high-value real-time gross settlements and retail clearing coexist within the same technical infrastructure. The Czech National Bank processes an average of 4.2 million transactions daily with average daily turnover of CZK 1,506 billion. The system serves 49 direct participants and maintains a throughput capacity of 1.5 million transactions per hour, providing substantial headroom above current volumes.
A significant regulatory change in 2025 expanded access to the system. CERTIS Rules version 14, effective May 19, 2025, opened direct participation to payment institutions and electronic money institutions for the first time. Previously restricted to banks, the change aligns with European Union payment services requirements. Non-bank participants operate under similar technical conditions but cannot obtain intraday credit from the central bank, a distinction that preserves the risk management framework while broadening the participant base.
The Pay a Contact Register, which allows payers to send funds using a phone number or email address rather than a full account number, had 362,000 profiles registered by the end of 2025. While adoption remains modest relative to the Czech banking population, the service provides an infrastructure layer that could accelerate peer-to-peer instant payment usage as awareness grows.
CERTIS stands as one of the few payment systems globally that combines high-value interbank settlement and retail clearing on a single technical platform. This approach has enabled the Czech Republic to introduce instant payments without building separate infrastructure, in contrast to the dual-system models common in larger European economies where instant payment rails such as TIPS or RT1 operate alongside legacy RTGS systems. The system's evolution from a traditional gross settlement platform into a hybrid clearing and instant payment engine offers a distinctive model for economies seeking to modernize payment infrastructure within existing operational frameworks rather than through costly parallel builds.