Related Research Articles
The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is an internationally agreed upon system of identifying bank accounts across national borders to facilitate the communication and processing of cross border transactions with a reduced risk of transcription errors. An IBAN uniquely identifies the account of a customer at a financial institution. It was originally adopted by the European Committee for Banking Standards (ECBS) and since 1997 as the international standard ISO 13616 under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The current version is ISO 13616:2020, which indicates the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) as the formal registrar. Initially developed to facilitate payments within the European Union, it has been implemented by most European countries and numerous countries in other parts of the world, mainly in the Middle East and the Caribbean. By July 2024, 88 countries were using the IBAN numbering system.
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift), legally S.W.I.F.T. SC, is a cooperative established in 1973 in Belgium and owned by the banks and other member firms that use its service. SWIFT provides the main messaging network through which international payments are initiated. It also sells software and services to financial institutions, mostly for use on its proprietary "SWIFTNet", and assigns ISO 9362 Business Identifier Codes (BICs), popularly known as "Swift codes".
ISO 9362 is an international standard for Business Identifier Codes (BIC), a unique identifier for business institutions, approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). BIC is also known as SWIFT-BIC, SWIFT ID, or SWIFT code, after the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which is designated by ISO as the BIC registration authority. BIC was defined originally as Bank Identifier Code and is most often assigned to financial organizations; when it is assigned to non-financial organization, the code may also be known as Business Entity Identifier (BEI). These codes are used when transferring money between banks, particularly for international wire transfers, and also for the exchange of other messages between banks. The codes can sometimes be found on account statements.
Wire transfer, bank transfer, or credit transfer, is a method of electronic funds transfer from one person or entity to another. A wire transfer can be made from one bank account to another bank account, or through a transfer of cash at a cash office.
A giro transfer, often shortened to giro, is a payment transfer between current bank accounts and initiated by the payer, not the payee. The debit card has a similar model. Giros are primarily used in Europe; although electronic payment systems exist in the United States, it is not possible to perform third-party transfers with them. In the European Union, the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) allows electronic giro or debit card payments in euros to be executed to any euro bank account in the area.
FTAM, ISO standard 8571, is the OSI application layer protocol for file transfer, access and management.
FinTS, formerly known as HBCI, is a bank-independent protocol for online banking, developed and used by German banks.
A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, payment instruments such as payment cards, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that make its exchange possible. A payment system is an operational network which links bank accounts and provides for monetary exchange using bank deposits. Some payment systems also include credit mechanisms, which are essentially a different aspect of payment.
Sort codes are the domestic bank codes used to route money transfers between financial institutions in the United Kingdom, and in the Republic of Ireland. They are six-digit hierarchical numerical addresses that specify clearing banks, clearing systems, regions, large financial institutions, groups of financial institutions and ultimately resolve to individual branches. In the UK they continue to be used to route transactions domestically within clearance organizations and to identify accounts, while in the Republic of Ireland they have been deprecated and replaced by the Single European Payment Area (SEPA) systems and infrastructure.
The Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS) is a United States private clearing house for large-value transactions. As of late 2024, it settles approximately 500,000 payments totaling US$1.8 trillion per day. Together with the Federal Reserve Banks' Fedwire Funds Service, CHIPS forms the primary U.S. network for large-value domestic and international USD payments where it has a market share of around 96%. CHIPS transfers are governed by Article 4A of Uniform Commercial Code.
Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as a bank, to a customer that enables its owner to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and make payments by electronic transfer with a payment terminal and access automated teller machines (ATMs). Such cards are known by a variety of names, including bank cards, ATM cards, client cards, key cards or cash cards.
The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is a payment integration initiative of the European Union for simplification of bank transfers denominated in euros. As of 2020, there were 36 members in SEPA, consisting of the 27 member states of the European Union, the four member states of the European Free Trade Association, and the United Kingdom. Some microstates participate in the technical schemes: Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City.
An ATM card is a dedicated payment card card issued by a financial institution which enables a customer to access their financial accounts via its and others' automated teller machines (ATMs) and, in some countries, to make approved point of purchase retail transactions. ATM cards are not credit cards or debit cards, however most credit and debit cards can also act as ATM cards and that is the most common way that banks issue cards since the 2010s.
The German Banking Industry Committee (GBIC), known until 2011 as the Central Credit Committee is an industry association of the German banking industry. Its decisions are held normative for the national banking sector – either directly by interbank treaties or indirectly by preparing a corresponding ministerial or Bundesbank decision.
Structured Financial Messaging System (SFMS) is a secure messaging standard developed to serve as a platform for intra-bank and inter-bank applications. It is an Indian standard similar to SWIFT which is the international messaging system used for financial messaging globally.
Payments as a service (PaaS) is a marketing phrase used to describe software as a service to connect a group of international payment systems. The architecture is represented by a layer – or overlay – that resides on top of these disparate systems and provides for two-way communications between the payment system and the PaaS. Communication is governed by standard APIs created by the PaaS provider.
Vocalink is a payment systems company headquartered in the United Kingdom, created in 2007 from the merger between Voca and LINK. It designs, builds and operates the UK payments infrastructure, which underpins the provision of the Bacs payment system and the UK ATM LINK switching platform covering 65,000 ATMs and the UK Faster Payments systems.
PeSIT is a file transfer protocol developed in 1986 by the French Interbank Teleclearing System Economic Interest Grouping. Designed by working groups of file transfer experts from large computing centers, it offers basic file transfer functionalities and advanced features for managing mass file transfers and organizing industrial-scale file transfer services. PeSIT connections occur between two named and identifiable partners. The initiator of a connection, acting as the PeSIT requester, negotiates with the PeSIT responder for sending or receiving a file, sending a message, or acknowledging a transfer. The negotiation for file transfer does not involve mentioning the file name or its location in the partners' file systems (FS) but rather a virtual file identified by an identifier, "filename," which corresponds to local sets of definitions for accessing and reading a file on the sender's side and creating and writing it on the receiver's side. Each transfer has a unique identification known by both exchange partners. The protocol allows assigning a priority to each transfer, which should be respected by both parties.
EBA Clearing is a provider of pan-European payment infrastructure wholly owned by shareholders that consist of major European banks.
SIA S.p.A. is an Italian company operating in the area of ICT, providing services to the banking and finance sector in addition to platforms for financial markets and e-payment services.
References
- ↑ Narinda Viguier and Axel Weiß (30 January 2012). "The History and Vision of EBICS".
- ↑ "SCT Verfahrensregeln" / "Procedural Rules for credit transfers", section 3.1, quote "Deliveries from the SEPA Clearer are made only by data telecommunication via EBICS or SWIFTNet FileAct. This is governed by the specifications on communication set out in the Procedural Rules for Communication via SWIFTNet FileAct for the Deutsche Bundesbank’s Retail Payment System (RPS) SEPA Clearer (SCL) and the Procedural Rules for Communication with Credit Institutions/payment institutions with a bank sort code via EBICS. Conversion of SEPA credit transfers in old formats (DTA, MT 103+) is not supported."