Payment systems

Payment systems are used to transmit and settle all payment flows from the economy and the financial sector. They are divided into two main categories:

• detail payment systems;
• large-value payment systems.

Retail payment system: CORE (FR)

Retail payment systems only process flows of payments from banks’ retail and business customers. They typically handle large volumes, although the value of individual payments tends to be low.

CORE (COmpensation REtail) (FR) is the French retail payment system, designed, developed and managed by the company STET, which is jointly owned by the five leading French banks (BNP Paribas, BPCE, Crédit Agricole, Banque Fédérative du Crédit Mutuel and Société Générale). It was introduced gradually from January to October 2008, to replace the previous Système Interbancaire de Télécompensation (SIT); the existing domestic payment formats (MINOS) were progressively migrated to the CORE system, alongside the new SEPA instruments (SEPA Credit Transfer SCT and SEPA Direct Debit SDD).

CORE(FR) is a multilateral netting system, where settlement of payments is deferred and occurs once a day. All payments are settled in central bank money, in the participants’ TARGET2 accounts.

The system has been notified to the European Commission and is therefore covered by the directive on settlement finality: transactions presented by participants may not be revoked once they have been entered into the system (FR), even in the event of bankruptcy.

The Governing Council of the European Central Bank recognised CORE(FR) as a systemically important payment system on 11 August 2014. As a result, it is required to comply with the provisions of EU Regulation No 795/2014 of the European Central Bank on oversight requirements for systemically important payment systems.

CORE (FR) statistics

In 2013, CORE(FR) handled more than 13 billion payment transactions, including:

• 7.2 billion card payments,
• 2.2 billion direct debits,
• 1.9 billion bank transfers,
• 2.0 billion cheques.
• Click here for more statistics
• List of participants