The Fund Transfer and Settlement Company - TRANSFOND was set up following Romania’s commitments to the European Union as regards the modernization of the Romanian financial and banking infrastructure. At its establishment, TRANSFOND had as shareholders the National Bank of Romania and 28 commercial banks. Currently, due to some mergers and to the termination of some business lines in the payment system, which have been taking place since 2000, TRANSFOND has 24 shareholders, including the National Bank of Romania.
TRANSFOND becomes operational, taking over by mandate the business of operating the paper-based payment system, outsourced by the central bank.
This period saw the development and implementation of the Electronic Payment System. The EPS was implemented via a project jointly financed by the European Union -through the PHARE programme - and the Romanian banking community – through TRANSFOND. The system became operational in three distinct stages (SEP – SENT, ReGIS, SaFIR).
The real-time gross settlement system for high-value and/or urgent payments – the RTGS (Real-Time Gross Settlement System) system, called ReGIS in Romania, goes live.
The ACH (Automated Clearing House) component registered in Romania under the SENT trademark is launched and goes live only one month after the launch of ReGIS. The State Treasury joins the other participants in the multilateral clearing system.
The third EPS component is launched, a component that provides the custody and settlement of government securities operations. With this stage, the implementation of the EPS project is considered completed. As regards this system, TRANSFOND has the role of technical operator.
The SENT module for the automated processing of debt instruments (cheques, bills of exchange and promissory notes) represents the full automation of the interbank payment system in Romania. The system provided by TRANSFOND replaces clearing previously based on the exchange of paper-based debt instruments among the 42 county clearing centers.
In July, TRANSFOND launched the e-Arhiv@ application, an Electronic Document Archiving Service, developed under Law 135/2007. The company obtained all the necessary accreditations and certifications from the Ministry of Communications and Information Society to provide such services. The service targets mainly the financial community of Romania.
TRANSFOND completed the development of a service of real interest to both invoice issuers and beneficiaries alike – the Electronic Invoicing service. e-Factur@ is delivered via a unique, secured application through which certified users can issue, send, receive and archive invoices in an electronic format, thus paving the way for saving costs and improving working capital management via the proper adequacy of funds and easy management of receivables.
The new system enables processing of SEPA credit transfers in national currency for banks which joined this payments scheme. However, TRANSFOND has developed a solution that enables banks that have not yet implemented SEPA payment standards to exchange messages among themselves and with SEPA banks. This is a first step towards the adaption of the interbank payment infrastructure to the specific requirements of the European single currency. In addition, TRANSFOND added several new features likely to streamline the compensation process.
The new service provided by TRANSFOND allows companies as well as individuals to make euro payments via Romanian banks participating in SENT – Euro Component, or from banks in Europe in their favor, for the same commission currently charged by TRANSFOND for interbank payments in lei.
TRANSFOND in partnership with the Romanian Banking Association, launched on April 11, 2016 direct debit processing service in SEPA format (SEPA Direct Debit - SDD) for payments in national currency, thereby completing modernization program of the Automated Clearing House – SENT’s central infrastructure and complete preparation of interbank retail payment ( except cards)for the euro transition.
The Romanian financial banking community is now able to offer to its clients the Instant Payment service, which assures the money transfer in less than 10 seconds between the two banks involved. This kind of payment can be ordered anytime ((24/7/365). The individual value for an instant payment is below the value of 50 thousand lei.
Through this service, customers of participating banks can initiate payments extremely simply between the accounts of two different banks, whichever they are (interbank) - as long as those banks participate in AliasPay. using only the payee's mobile phone number. The AliasPay service is developed and made available to the banking community by TRANSFOND. The central AliasPay system is available 24/7/365.
Romanian banks have implemented a secure mechanism to prevent fraud in payments, minimizing the risk of erroneous payment to fraudulent beneficiaries, by verifying the identity of the beneficiary (holder of a certain IBAN) at the time of payment initiation by the payer, so that the latter can decide whether or not to initiate the payment, depending on the real identity of the beneficiary.
