The STET-CORE system is a French interbank automated clearing house. STET SA, whose name refers to Systèmes Technologiques d'Echange et de Traitement (), is the system's operating company, based in Paris La Défense. CORE, whose name refers to COmpensation REtail ( being French for clearing), is the main platform developed by STET SA. The CORE platform supports the CORE(FR) clearing service for French banks, which in 2014 has been designated as a Systemically Important Payment System at the European level. CORE also supports other systems such as CEC (Centre for Exchange and Clearing, ) in

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. CORE is the largest European retail payment system by volume and value. STET has also developed a pan-European platform for instant payments named SEPA.EU.

Overview

STET was established in December 2004 by France's six main banks, namely

BNP Paribas BNP Paribas (; sometimes referred to as BNPP or BNP) is a French multinational universal bank and financial services holding company headquartered in Paris. It was founded in 2000 from the merger of two of France's foremost financial instituti ...

Crédit Agricole Crédit Agricole Group (), sometimes called La banque verte (, , due to its historical ties to farming), is a French international banking group and the world's largest cooperative financial institution. It is the second largest bank in France, ...

, Crédit Mutuel,

Groupe Caisse d'Épargne Groupe Caisse d'épargne (, ) was a group of French savings banks that were converted into cooperative banks by legislation enacted in 1999. Its roots went back to the founding in 1818 of the , initiated by Benjamin Delessert and the Duke of La ...

Groupe Banque Populaire Banque Populaire (, ) was a French group of cooperative banks, with origins in the European cooperative movement. In 2009, it merged with Groupe Caisse d'Épargne to form Groupe BPCE. History Groupe Banque Populaire started in 1878 with the ...

, and

Société Générale Société Générale S.A. (), colloquially known in English-speaking countries as SocGen (), is a French multinational universal bank and financial services company founded in 1864. It is registered in downtown Paris and headquartered nearby i ...

, to replace a previous system known as the (SIT). The initiative was intended as a French banking industry response to the creation of the

Single Euro Payments Area The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is a payment integration initiative of the European Union for simplification of bank transfers denominated in euros. , there were 41 members in SEPA, consisting of the 27 member states of the European Union ...

(SEPA). The retail payments operated by STET, named CORE(FR), replaced SIT which ceased operations in October 2008. CORE clears payments from retail instruments such as

wire transfer 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 ...

promissory note A promissory note, sometimes referred to as a note payable, is a legal instrument (more particularly, a financing instrument and a debt instrument), in which one party (the ''maker'' or ''issuer'') promises in writing to pay a determinate sum of ...

s, direct debits, documentary collections, checks, or

card payment Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as a bank, to a customer that enables its owner (the cardholder) to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and ma ...

s, and allows for the exchange of SEPA Credit Transfers (SCTs) in France and across the EU. CORE started operations in January 2008 and eventually replaced the SIT in mid-2008. In March 2013, the CEC, which operated as interbank clearing house in

, in turn completed its migration to the STET platform. The Belgian and French clearing services members are still treated differentially, however. In December 2015, STET merged with SER2S, the manager of real-time payment instructions for the French CB payment cards consortium, and converted itself into a French joint-stock company, STET SA. By end-2016, the

Bank of France The Bank of France ( ) is the national central bank for France within the Eurosystem. It was the French central bank between 1800 and 1998, issuing the French franc. It does not translate its name to English, and thus calls itself ''Banque de F ...

, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and HSBC France had joined the shareholder banks as direct participants in CORE(FR), and the system had 177 indirect participants. CORE migrated its SEPA Direct Debits (SDDs) on to the pan-European platform SEPA.EU, and its SCTs in 2018. SEPA.EU allows for instant payments, activated on , as well as the management of

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

s in line with the second Payment Services Directive. As described in 2016, its competitors in Europe included RT1 (by

EBA Clearing EBA Clearing is a provider of pan-European payment infrastructure wholly owned by shareholders that consist of major European banks. It derives its name from the Euro Banking Association which was instrumental in its establishment in June 1998, b ...

), equensWorldline (by Worldline), and .

Notes

Payment clearing systems {{finance-stub

Overview

See also

Notes