The official site of Italy's central bank

Payment system

The payment system can be defined as the set of instruments, procedures and entities (both intermediaries and other), infrastructures and rules that contribute to the transfer of money from one operator to another.

The intervention of central banks aims to preserve the public’s confidence in the currency as a means of payment by promoting conditions of efficiency, stability and security. By making the transfer of money between operators easier and fostering the growth of transactions, the smooth functioning of the payment system is a necessary condition for the stability and efficiency of the financial markets and for the growth of the real economy.

The direct provision of payment services is one of the levers available to the central bank, together with regulation of the system (the oversight function) and cooperation with the market, with which to promote the smooth functioning of the payment system.

In Italy the central bank operates national payment systems and in particular “BI-Rel”, for the settlement in real time of large individual transactions, and “BI-Comp”, for the clearing and settlement of retail payments. In its role as operator of payment systems, the Bank defines the policies for raising the efficiency, reliability and security of the direct provision of domestic payment services. The action at national level is set within a European context increasingly characterized by strong pressure to create common procedures for the euro-area and harmonize the regulatory framework.

The Eurosystem has entrusted the Bank of Italy, together with the central banks of France and Germany, with the task of developing and operating the single platform of the new European payment system TARGET2. The Bank has declared that it is ready, together with the central banks of France, Germany and Spain, to build a single European system for the settlement of securities transactions (TARGET2 securities); it is participating in and supporting the project for the creation by 2010 of a Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), in the sense of a fully integrated and competitive market with no difference between how domestic and cross-border payments are handled.

More generally, the Bank’s action in the payment system, where systemic risks and the cost of market inefficiencies are high, has contributed, together with factors such as technological and financial innovation and the country’s increasing international integration, to bringing Italy’s payment system into line with the standards of the other leading industrial economies.