With the implementation of the Electronic Payments System components, the processing speed of interbank payments went up significantly. More precisely, the transfer of the relevant funds from the account of the payer’s bank into the account of the beneficiary’s bank takes place within 2 hours of their reception in SENT (after clearing). Practically, the SENT system allows that a payment order presented by a customer to his/her bank early in the morning be sent the same day for settlement, while the beneficiary bank should be able to make available to its customer the respective amount until the end of the banking day.
By the three daily clearing sessions and the significant expansion of SENT working hours, the possibility to make intraday payments was extended. SENT can be configured so as to provide more reachability daily, if the market requests it.
A high level of data security is provided via the usage of a public key infrastructure (PKI); in order to provide and check the authenticity of the initiator, digital certificates issued by a licensed certification authority are used.
By introducing SENT, the risk of human errors occurring was mitigated, since all processes (except for the operations pertaining to the management of applications and the urgent ones) are now automated. The number of people involved in the handling of paper-based instruments dropped significantly.
The electronic sending and processing of payment instructions brings about a reduction in the number of employees involved in processing instructions and a drop in the staffing costs for banks and for TRANSFOND. Since the go-live of the Automated Clearing House, TRANSFOND has cut, gradually, the fees charged to banks and to the other SENT participants so that, currently, they are 23% of the level charged for the paper-based system.
A relevant example in this respect is the interbank direct debit that is widely used in developed countries for a whole number of operations, such as the payment of utility invoices or of loan installments.
In addition to the reports automatically generated and sent by SENT, upon the participants’ request, TRANSFOND draws up and provides statistical reports on the participants’ activity related to the systems managed by TRANSFOND, during the requested periods.
Where a participant can no longer connect to SENT for any reason whatsoever, TRANSFOND provides the said participant with processing services, namely the manual introduction in the application, at TRANSFOND's premises, of the payment instructions submitted to TRANSFOND by ways outside the system, outside the dedicated communication networks (paper-based, optic or magnetic format, via secured e-mail, etc.).
