Decision of the European Central Bank of 24 July 2007 concerning the terms and conditions of TARGET2-ECB (ECB/2007/7) (2007/601/EC)

TITLE IV MANAGEMENT OF PM ACCOUNTS AND PROCESSING OF PAYMENT ORDERS

Article 10 Opening and management of PM accounts

1. The ECB shall open and operate at least one PM account and, if applicable, sub-accounts, for each participant.

2. No debit balance shall be allowed on PM accounts.

3. PM accounts and their sub-accounts shall be interest free.

4. Participants shall use the ICM to obtain information on their liquidity position. The ECB shall provide a daily statement of accounts to any participant that has opted for such service.

Article 11 Types of payment orders

The following are classified as payment orders for the purposes of TARGET2:

(a)

credit transfer orders;

(b)

direct debit instructions carried out under a direct debit authorisation; and

(c)

liquidity transfer orders.

Article 12 Acceptance and rejection of payment orders

1. Payment orders submitted by participants are deemed accepted by the ECB if:

(a) the payment message complies with the rules established by the network service provider;

(b) the payment message complies with the formatting rules and conditions of TARGET2-ECB and passes the double-entry check described in Appendix I; and

(c) in cases where a payer or a payee has been suspended, the suspended participant's CB's explicit consent has been obtained.

2. The ECB shall immediately reject any payment order that does not fulfil the conditions laid down in paragraph 1. The ECB shall inform the participant of any rejection of a payment order, as specified in Appendix I.

Article 13 Priority rules

1. Instructing participants shall designate every payment order as one of the following:

(a) normal payment order (priority class 2);

(b) urgent payment order (priority class 1); or

(c) highly urgent payment order (priority class 0).

If a payment order does not indicate the priority, it shall be treated as a normal payment order.

2. Highly urgent payment orders may only be designated by:

(a) CBs; and

(b) participants, in cases of payments to and from CLS International Bank and liquidity transfers in favour of ancillary systems.

All payment instructions submitted by an ancillary system through the Ancillary System Interface to debit or credit the participants' PM accounts shall be deemed to be highly urgent payment orders.

3. In the case of urgent and normal payment orders, the payer may change the priority via the ICM with immediate effect. It shall not be possible to change the priority of a highly urgent payment.

Article 14 Liquidity limits

1. A participant may limit the use of available liquidity for payment orders in relation to other TARGET2 participants, except any of the CBs, by setting bilateral or multilateral limits. Such limits may only be set in relation to normal payment orders.

2. By setting a bilateral limit, a participant instructs the ECB that an accepted payment order shall not be settled if the sum of its outgoing normal payment orders to another TARGET2 participant's PM account minus the sum of all incoming urgent and normal payments from such TARGET2 participant's PM account would exceed this bilateral limit.

3. A participant may set a multilateral limit for any relationship that is not subject to a bilateral limit. A multilateral limit may only be set if the participant has set at least one bilateral limit. If a participant sets a multilateral limit, it instructs the ECB that an accepted payment order shall not be settled if the sum of its outgoing normal payment orders to all TARGET2 participants' PM accounts in relation to which no bilateral limit has been set, minus the sum of all incoming urgent and normal payments from such PM accounts would exceed this multilateral limit.

4. The minimum amount of any of the limits shall be EUR 1 million. A bilateral or a multilateral limit with an amount of zero shall be treated as if no limit has been set. Limits between zero and EUR 1 million are not possible.

5. Limits may be changed in real time with immediate effect or with effect from the next business day via the ICM. If a limit is changed to zero, it shall not be possible to change it again on the same business day. The setting of a new bilateral or multilateral limit shall only be effective from the next business day.

Article 15 Liquidity reservation facilities

1. Participants may reserve liquidity for highly urgent or urgent payment orders via the ICM.

2. By requesting to reserve a certain amount of liquidity for highly urgent payment orders, a participant instructs the ECB only to settle urgent and normal payment orders if there is available liquidity after the amount reserved for highly urgent payment orders has been deducted.

3. By requesting to reserve a certain amount of liquidity for urgent payment orders, a participant instructs the ECB only to settle normal payment orders if there is available liquidity after the amount reserved for urgent and highly urgent payment orders has been deducted.

4. After receipt of the reservation request the ECB shall check whether the amount of liquidity on the participant's PM account is sufficient for the reservation. If this is not the case, only the liquidity available on the PM account shall be reserved. The rest of the requested liquidity reservation shall not be reserved automatically at any later point in time, even if the amount of liquidity available on the participant's PM account reaches the level of the initial reservation request.

5. The level of the liquidity reservation may be changed. Participants may make a request via the ICM to reserve new amounts with immediate effect or with effect from the next business day.

Article 16 Predetermined settlement times

1. Instructing participants may predetermine the settlement time of the payment orders within a business day by using the Earliest Debit Time Indicator or the Latest Debit Time Indicator.

2. When the Earliest Debit Time Indicator is used, the accepted payment order is stored and only entered into the entry disposition at the indicated time.

3. When the Latest Debit Time Indicator is used, the accepted payment order shall be returned as non-settled if it cannot be settled by the indicated debit time. 15 minutes prior to the defined debit time, the instructing participant shall be sent an automatic notification via the ICM. Instructing participant may also use the Latest Debit Time Indicator solely as a warning indicator. In such cases, the payment order concerned shall not be returned.

4. Instructing participants can change the Earliest Debit Time Indicator and the Latest Debit Time Indicator via the ICM.

5. Further technical details are contained in Appendix I.

Article 17 Payment orders submitted in advance

1. Payment orders may be submitted up to five business days before the specified settlement date (warehoused payment orders).

2. Warehoused payment orders shall be accepted and entered into the entry disposition on the date specified by the instructing participant at the start of daytime processing, as referred to in Appendix V. They shall be placed in front of payment orders of the same priority.

3. Articles 13(3), 20(2) and 23(1)(a) shall apply mutatis mutandis to warehoused payment orders.

Article 18 Settlement of payment orders in the entry disposition

1. Unless instructing participants have indicated the settlement time in the manner described in Article 16, accepted payment orders shall be settled immediately or at the latest by the end of the business day on which they were accepted, provided that sufficient funds are available on the payer's PM account and taking into account any liquidity limits and liquidity reservations as referred to in Articles 14 and 15.

2. Funding may be provided by:

(a) the available liquidity on the PM account; or

(b) incoming payments from other TARGET2 participants, subject to the applicable optimisation procedures.

3. For highly urgent payment orders the ‘first in, first out’ (FIFO) principle shall apply. This means that highly urgent payment orders shall be settled in chronological order. Urgent and normal payment orders shall not be settled for as long as highly urgent payment orders are queued.

4. For urgent payment orders the FIFO principle shall also apply. Normal payment orders shall not be settled if urgent and highly urgent payment orders are queued.

5. By derogation from paragraphs 3 and 4, payment orders with a lower priority (or of the same priority but accepted later) may be settled before payment orders with a higher priority (or of the same priority which were accepted earlier), if the payment orders with a lower priority would net out with payments to be received and result on balance in a liquidity increase for the payer.

6. Normal payment orders shall be settled in accordance with the FIFO by-passing principle. This means that they may be settled immediately (independently of other queued normal payments accepted at an earlier time) and may therefore breach the FIFO principle, provided that sufficient funds are available.

7. Further details on the settlement of payment orders in the entry disposition are contained in Appendix I.

Article 19 Settlement and return of queued payment orders

1. Payment orders that are not settled immediately in the entry disposition shall be placed in the queues in accordance with the priority to which they were designated by the relevant participant, as referred to in Article 13.

2. To optimise the settlement of queued payment orders, the ECB may use the optimisation procedures described in Appendix I.

3. The payer may change the queue position of payment orders in a queue (i.e. reorder them) via the ICM. Payment orders may be moved either to the front or to the end of the respective queue with immediate effect at any time during daytime processing, as referred to in Appendix V.

4. Liquidity transfer orders initiated in the ICM shall be immediately returned as non-settled if there is insufficient liquidity. Other payment orders shall be returned as non-settled if they cannot be settled by the cut-off times for the relevant message type, as specified in Appendix V.

Article 20 Entry of payment orders into the system and their irrevocability

1. For the purposes of the first sentence of Article 3(1) of the Settlement Finality Directive and the third sentence of § 116, § 96(2), § 82 and § 340(3) of the Insolvenzordnung (German Insolvency Code) and the sixth sentence of § 46a(1) of the KWG, payment orders are deemed entered into TARGET2-ECB at the moment that the relevant participant's PM account is debited.

2. Payment orders may be revoked until they are entered into TARGET2-ECB in accordance with paragraph 1. Payment orders that are included in an algorithm, as referred to in Appendix I, may not be revoked during the period that the algorithm is running.