TARGET

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

TARGET (Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement Express Transfer System) is an interbank payment system for the real-time processing of cross-border transfers throughout the European Union. It includes 16 national real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems and the ECB payment mechanism (EPM). TARGET provides access to more than 1,000 direct participants and more than 48,000 credit institutions (including branches and subsidiaries).

1 Infrastructure
2 Participants
3 Volume
4 TARGET holidays
5 TARGET2
6 Transition to TARGET2
7 Transaction prices for TARGET2
8 References
9 See also
10 External links

[edit] Infrastructure

TARGET itself is not, strictly speaking a funds transfer system, in that transfers cannot be fed into TARGET directly; it merely links existing national systems. TARGET provides interlinking and security components via which the national systems can communicate.

TARGET is mainly used for individual payments between banks, but it is also used for urgent transfers between companies, or even individuals, at the discretion of the banks involved. Communication between the national systems mainly use the SWIFT network.

[edit] Participants

As of November 2006, the participants are the EU15 countries and the ECB, plus Poland, Slovenia, and Estonia. The Polish and Estonian systems are connected indirectly via the Italian system, New BIREL. Slovenia (20 banks plus the Slovenian central bank) are connected direct to the German RTGSplus system.

[edit] Volume

In June 2006 there were over 7 million TARGET payments, with a total value of over 47,000 billion euros ^[1]

[edit] TARGET holidays

On some public holidays the TARGET system is closed in all participating countries.

TARGET holidays are: New Year (January 1), Easter Friday, Easter Monday, Labour Day (May 1), and the first and second days of Christmas (December 25 and December 26).

[edit] TARGET2

TARGET2 is the planned joint gross clearing system of the (ESCB) that is to unify the technical infrastructure of the 26 central (note-issuing) banks of the European Union.

Its implementation is based on a decision of the ECB Council of Autumn 2002 and is to be done by the three central banks of France (Banque de France), Germany (Bundesbank) and Italy (Banca d'Italia). The technical platform is now (November 2006) operational but the transition is still to be implemented.

[edit] Transition to TARGET2

The ECB is planning a transition of national systems to Target2 in four stages:

[edit] Group 1 (2007-11-19)

[edit] Group 2 (2008-02-18)

[edit] Group 3 (2008-05-19)

[edit] Group 4 (2008-09-15)

for unforeseen circumstances

[edit] Transaction prices for TARGET2

Transaction prices have still to be decided (as of November 2006), but the ECB has proposed two parallel schemes:

EUR 100 per month plus EUR 0.80 per transaction
EUR 1,250 per month plus EUR 0.20 to EUR 0.60 per transaction (depending on the volume of transactions)