Five Irish banks spent six years on a Revolut killer — Synch never launched

Synch Payments was a joint venture of Ireland's main banks to build the country's bank-owned instant mobile payments app

That five rival banks could jointly build a mobile instant-payments app quickly enough to stop Revolut from becoming the default way Irish people send money

About €17 million of capital from its founding banks

In 2017, with Revolut at just 30,000 Irish customers, AIB, Bank of Ireland, PTSB, Ulster Bank and KBC Bank Ireland began meeting under Banking and Payments Federation Ireland coordination on a joint mobile instant payments service — Project Pegasus, the first major bank collaboration since the Laser debit card launched in 1996.

The JV, Synch Payments, was filed with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission in early 2021 — by which time Ulster Bank had dropped out. The CCPC couldn't tell from the filing whether it was even a merger, and a refiled submission went through in-depth scrutiny before approval in June 2022, with conditions on governance, eligibility criteria and a commitment to implement Sepa Instant. The technology came from Italian fintech group Nexis, with launch targeted before Christmas 2022. Then KBC — exiting Ireland — planned its own quit, banks pointed fingers over each other's commitment, and in July 2023 the Central Bank had to tell the joint venture, among the most supervised institutions in the state, that its plan needed authorisation.

On 22 November 2023, Synch — having explored 'alternative' business models to avoid the regulatory nod — conceded it was 'no longer feasible to launch its payments app' and would cease operations. Revolut's Irish base had ballooned past 2.5 million, almost half the population of the state, its deepest penetration in any European market.

Six years elapsed between spotting the threat and the feasibility surrender — swallowed by competition filings, in-depth scrutiny, governance conditions and a missed regulatory authorisation.

The membership was unstable: Ulster Bank left during filing, KBC planned its exit while preparing launch, and the remaining banks questioned each other's commitment.

It was a rearguard action by incumbents whose payments plumbing had seen decades of under-investment, against a competitor already pitching more lucrative products to its base.

Consortium products ship at the speed of the most distracted member: by the time five banks align on governance, the competitor has already become the verb.

With Synch winding down, Irish banks' instant-payments hopes reverted to Sepa Instant — a 'significant priority programme' per BPFI — as EU instant-payment rules approached final agreement and the ECB pressed ahead with a digital euro.