The SNCE

The National Electronic Clearing System (SNCE) is the Spanish retail payment system managed by IBERPAY (Sociedad Española de Sistemas de Pago) a private company whose shareholders are the credit institutions participating in the SNCE. The Banco de España is responsible for approving the rules of the system and for its oversight.

Since the end of 2011, the SNCE has been a fully centralised system which processes transactions originating from retail payment instruments: SEPA credit transfers, SEPA direct debits, cheques, bills of exchange and other operations. From an operating point of view, it is structured into various sub-systems where the participants exchange all information concerning payments. Generally, transactions are cleared and then the net amount is settled on the accounts which participants hold in TARGET2-Banco de España.

As regards membership, those entities enabled for this purpose in the system Regulations may be members of the SNCE provided that they comply with the criteria required. The Banco de España is also a participant in the SNCE in order to channel its own retail payments as well as those of the public administration. There are two types of participant in the SNCE: direct participants, who are, in turn, IBERPAY shareholders, and indirect participants, who appear on the system as represented by a direct participant. They may participate in all or some of the existing sub-systems.

For the purposes of guaranteeing access to the accounts of an entity located in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) - made up of 34 European countries, including Spain - Iberpay has set up “payment gateways" with different European clearing houses by signing interoperability agreements. These gateways allow entities participating in the SNCE the exchange, clearing and settlement with other entities in SEPA under the same conditions as with other participants in the SNCE.