Clearing and settlement services

Ensuring efficient and reliable exchange of retail payment transactions

Compensation Retail
(CORE-BE)

In 2012, the Belgian Community choose to outsource the clearing & settlement activities to STET, thereby using a common technical architecture with the French community while the system itself is specifically configured for the Belgian community.

Files are exchanged on a real-time basis and cleared and settled via multilateral exchanges, optimizing the use of the liquidity. The exchanges are effectively settled during multiple intraday cycles (5) throughout the day, on a delivery-after-settlement basis. This last functionality mitigates the liquidity risk by providing finality to the delivered transactions.

CORE-BE hosts as well the clearing & settlement for SEPA credit transfers and SEPA direct debits as for cheques and cards. Part of the card transactions are settled on a globalized basis.

Instant Payments
(IP-BE)

Since March 2019, CEC offers instant payments. Individual payments are settled 24/7/365 within 5 seconds between participating banks, with funds being made available to the beneficiary within seconds – regardless of where the bank account is held. 14 direct and 3 indirect participants are connected to this system.

Single Window for Instant Payments
(SWIP-BE)

12 direct participants also use the SWIP service (Single Window for Instant Payments), allowing them to exchange instant payments with RT1 and TIPS, the instant payment systems of EBA Clearing and the ECB (European Central Bank) respectively.

Participation criteria

The payment system has defined 3 different statutes: direct participant – indirect participant with direct technical access – indirect participant.

To become a direct participant in the payment system, the candidate needs to become a member of the association. The eligibility criteria to become a member can be found here (PDF document).

Indirect participants settle their transactions through a direct participant. They can either connect directly to the system or exchange their payments via the direct participant that is representing them in the system. The eligibility criteria to become an indirect participant can be found here (PDF document).

Pricing

CEC is a not-for-profit association. The members pay for the operational management of the CEC via a yearly budget – approved by the Board and validated on the Annual General meeting – next to the annual fixed cost and the variable costs invoiced by STET.

The specific Tariffing for the clearing activities can be found here (PDF document).