Domestic
An efficient national payment system reduces the cost of exchanging goods, services, and assets. It is indispensable to the functioning of the interbank, money, and capital markets. A weak payment system may severely drag on the stability and developmental capacity of a national economy. Such failures can result in inefficient use of financial resources, inequitable risk-sharing among agents, actual losses for participants, and loss of confidence in the financial system and in the very use of money. The technical efficiency of the payment system is important for the development of the economy. An automated clearing house (ACH) system processes transactions in batches, storing, and transmitting them in groups. An ACH is considered a net settlement system, which means settlement may be delayed. This poses what is known as settlement risk. Real-time gross settlement systems (RTGS) are funds transfer systems where the transfer of money or securities takes place from one bank to another on a "real-time" and on "gross" basis. Settlement in "real time" means that payment transaction does not require any waiting period. The transactions are settled as soon as they are processed. "Gross settlement" means the transaction is settled on one to one basis without bunching or netting with any other transaction. Once processed, payments are final and irrevocable. Comparatively, ACHs are typically used for low-value, non-urgent transactions while RTGS systems are typically used for high-value, urgent transactions. Countries and regions have also implemented real-time or instant (or faster) payment systems which typically operate 24x7x365 and perform the transaction from debit of ordering customer's account to credit of beneficiary customer's account within a timeframe of 10–15 seconds.International
Globalization is driving corporations to transact more frequently across borders. Consumers are also transacting more on a global basis—buying from foreign eCommerce sites as well as traveling, living, and working abroad. For the payments industry, the result is higher volumes of payments—in terms of both currency value and number of transactions. This is also leading to a consequent shift downwards in the average value of these payments. Some of these payments can be cumbersome, error prone, and expensive. Payments systems set up decades ago might be retrofitted or force-fitted to meet modern business needs. Frequently, the systems become unstable or less reliable, for example, STEP2 (an upgrade from 2003), which processes only euros. As of 2014, STEP2 is the only Pan-European automated clearing house (or PE-ACH system) in operation. This type of system is thought to become less relevant as banks will settle their transactions via multiple clearing houses rather than using one central clearing house. T2 is a RTGS system that covers the European Union member states which use the euro. It is part of the Eurosystem, which comprises the European Central Bank and the national central banks of those countries that have adopted the euro. T2 is used for the settlement of central bank operations, large-value Euro interbank transfers as well as other euro payments. It provides real-time financial transfers, debt settlement at central banks which is immediate and irreversible. For users of these systems, on both the paying and receiving sides, it can be difficult and time-consuming to learn how to use cross-border payment tools, and how to set up processes to make optimal use of them. Solution providers (both banks and non-banks) also face challenges cobbling together old systems to meet new demands. For these providers, cross-border payments are both lucrative (especially given foreign exchange conversion revenue) and rewarding, in terms of the overall financial relationship created with the end customer. The challenges for global payments are not simply those resulting from volume increases. A number of economic, political, and technical factors are changing the types of cross-border transactions conducted. Such factors include: * Companies are making more cross-border purchases of services (as opposed to goods), as well as more purchases of complex fabricated parts rather than simple, raw materials. * Enterprises are purchasing from more countries, in more regions. * Increased outsourcing is leading to new in-country and new cross-border intra-company transactions. * More enterprises are participating in complex, automated supply chains, which in some cases drive automatic ordering and fulfillment. Online purchasing continues to grow, both by large enterprises as part of an automated procurement system and by smaller enterprises purchasing directly. * There is continued growth in the number of cross-border commuters. * Individuals are increasingly investing abroad.See also
* Automated clearing house * Automated teller machine * Clearing * Credit card *References
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