Payment systems
One of the statutory tasks the National Bank is charged with is to promote efficient and sound clearing and payment systems. The Bank tries to meet this objective through its operational association as system manager and chair of a number of payment systems.
Secretariat of the agreements: payment standards
The Secretariat of the agreements allocates the identification codes to the financial institutions that are active on the Belgian market. The Secretariat also provides the postscript print files and the list of technical features free of charge for the printing of normal transfers, cross-border transfers and bills of exchange, but only to financial institutions and printing establishments.
TARGET2
TARGET2, short for Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement Express Transfer system, is the RTGS-system provided through the Eurosystem. It is used for settling central bank operations, for large interbank transfers in euro and also for other euro-denominated transfers. The specific features of TARGET2 include processing in real time, settlement in central bank money and immediate finality.
CEC
The CEC is the Belgian automated interbank payment system for retail payments. It processes an average of 4.9 million payments a day.
SEPA
The "Single Euro Payments Area" (SEPA) is a major European project which aims at creating a single European market for payment services.
RECOUR
RECOUR, the current account system of the National Bank of Belgium (NBB), is used for the settlement of operations on accounts held by the credit institutions.
WIROW
The National Bank of Belgium has developed a transaction management application based on Internet technology. The access to this application is based on an electronic certificate and constitutes the platform for all data of the Financial Markets department.
The securities settlement system (NBB-SSS)
The National Bank administers a settlement system for securities (formerly called Clearing), which ensures the secure handling of transactions in, predominantly, dematerialised securities (securities that only exist in the form of an entry on an account).
Euroclear Belgium-ESES
Euroclear Belgium carries out the settlement of most stock exchange operations. The settlement takes place on cash accounts with the National Bank of Belgium held on the ESES platform of Euroclear.