Payment systems in Spain

The Spanish interbank payment system is structured around two systems: TARGET-Banco de España, for processing large-value payments; and the National Electronic Clearing System (SNCE) and Payment cards, for small-value payments.

TARGET Services are a number of services developed and operated by the Eurosystem which ensure the free flow of cash, securities and collateral across Europe.

These financial market infrastructure services include T2 (for settling payments), T2S (for settling securities), TIPS (a service for instant payments) and ECMS (a service for collateral management). All of them settle in central bank money. Eurosystem’s new real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system and central liquidity management tool went live on 20 March 2023. T2 has replaced TARGET2 as the new RTGS system for settling payments related to the Eurosystem’s monetary policy operations, as well as bank to bank and commercial transactions. This new system will contribute to harmonisation and efficiency of Europe’s financial markets.

The National Electronic Clearing System is managed by Iberpay, a private company owned by the participating credit institutions. This system processes transactions conducted using retail payment instruments: SEPA credit transfers, SEPA direct debits, cheques, bills of exchange and various other operations (non-standardised documents, commissions and fees on loans or documented batches, foreign currency exchange, etc.). The settlement of these transactions is conducted in the accounts the participants hold in TARGET-Banco de España.