SaFIR is the Securities Settlement System – SSS owned and operated by the National Bank of Romania as a Central Securities Depository. Government securities issued on the interbank market, the certificates of deposit issued by the central bank and other fixed income financial instruments set forth by National Bank of Romania's Board are deposited with this system. At the same time, the system settles operations with financial instruments such as Delivery versus Payment - DvP , Free of Payment - FoP, Delivery with Payment - DwP, Receive with Payment and Payment Free of Delivery - PFoD.
The system is operated by the central bank pursuant to Art. 21 and Art. 29 Para. 2 Letter b) from Law no. 312/2004 regarding the Statute of the National Bank of Romania, as well as the conventions concluded with the Ministry of Finance, in fulfillment of its statutory role of promoting good functioning of payment systems in order to ensure financial stability, as well as support implementation of the monetary policy of NBR and the functioning of the market monetary. Nevertheless, the smooth operation of the system contributes to increasing investor confidence in Romanian government securities.
The system was designated, by NBR Governor's Order, as falling under the provisions of the Law no. 253 of 16 June 2004 on the settlement finality in payment and securities settlement systems, as subsequently amended (transposing into the Romanian legislation Directive 98/26/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 May 1998 on settlement finality in payments and securities settlement systems, as subsequently amended).
By operating SaFIR, NBR aims to minimize the systemic risk at the level of the financial market infrastructures in Romania (the possibility that a single actor might cause the collapse of the entire market), ensuring an efficient processing of transfers of financial instruments at the national level, as well as adequate management of the collateral set up with financial instruments, pledges in favor of NBR being also managed by this system.
Statistics
The daily average volume of DvP transfers in RON-denominated financial instruments processed within SaFIR during 2023 was 131 transactions per day, with a daily average value of RON 1,985 million, while the daily average number of DvP transactions in EUR-denominated financial instruments processed within SaFIR was 3, with a daily average value of EUR 125 million.
At the end of 2023, the total nominal value of outstanding financial instruments deposited in SaFIR, denominated in RON was 312,961.83 million, thus marking an increase of about 23.35 percent compared to previous year, while denominated in EUR was 2,858.49 million, down by 34.45 percent compared to previous year.
SaFIR management
The SaFIR system is administered by NBR. In this capacity, NBR manages and monitors system operation, authorizes the participation in the system, sets forth and amends the SaFIR System Rules and monitors their observance by the participants, taking measures in case of infringement.
With the view to ensuring effective governance of the payment and settlement systems operated by the National Bank of Romania (including SaFIR), with a clear separation of roles and responsibilities between the management body and senior management, a single governance scheme, with roles and multi-level management responsibilities is implemented.
At the same time, BNR has adopted a Conflict of interest management policy in the SaFIR system.
Participation in SaFIR
Following categories of institutions are eligible for participating in SaFIR :
- Credit institutions from the European Economic Area, as defined in Art. 4 Par. (1) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on prudential requirements for credit institutions and investment firms and amending Regulation (EU) No 648/2012;
- Credit institutions from outside the European Economic Area, provided that they operate via a branch set up in the European Economic Area;
- The National Bank of Romania;
- Ministry of Finance;
- Securities companies within the European Economic Area, as defined in Art. 4 Par. (1) (1) of Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 on markets in financial instruments and amending Directive 2002/92/EC and Directive 2011/61/EU if they are accepted on the primary and/or secondary market managed by the National Bank of Romania;
- Central securities depositories authorized to provide services within the European Economic Area, in accordance with the provisions of Regulation (EU) No 909/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on improving securities settlement in the European Union and on central securities depositories and amending Directives 98/26/EC and 2014/65/EU and Regulation (EU) No 236/2012;
- Central counterparties authorized to provide services within the European Economic Area, in accordance with the provisions of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories.
In order to participate to SaFIR, an acceding institution must:
- Meet the eligibility requirements above;
- Prove it has adequate operational capacity;
- For credit institutions governed by foreign legislation (including those from the European Economic Area), provide legal opinions on the capacity and the country (unless the information and statements to be provided by such legal opinions have already been obtained by NBR in another context).
At the end of 2023, a number of 34 participants has been registered in the SaFIR system, out of which 29 credit institutions, one issuer (Ministry of Finance), NBR and 3 financial market infrastructures.
Types of services offered
1. Core services:
- Notary service (initial recording of financial instruments in a book-entry system);
- Central maintenance service ( providing and maintaining securities accounts);
- Securities settlement service.
2. Ancillary services:
- Service related to the settlement service:
- collateral management service;
- repo operations management service;
- Service related to the notary and central maintenance service:
- information services;
- processing of payment events;
- processing of financial instruments garnishments.
Operating timetable
SaFIR operates Monday to Friday, between 8:30 a.m. and 5:40 p.m. (local Romanian time), except for the declared legal or religious holidays
Availability
In 2023, the overall availability stood at 100.00%
SaFIR availability is an indicator calculated as a ratio between the actual operation time and the scheduled operating time.
Business continuity
The SaFIR system administrator applies and maintains an adequate business continuity policy and a disaster recovery plan in order to ensure continuity of services, fast resumption of operations and fulfillment of obligations in case of events that present a significant risk of disrupting the operations. The plan includes the existence of a secondary processing facility, with adequate resources, capabilities and functionality, which can take over the processing in case of contingency situations.
At the same time, in contingency situations encountered by the participants, NBR may enter settlement instructions on behalf of the participants. The SaFIR administrator will undertake the necessary efforts to meet such requests, within the boundaries of available resources and taking into account priority, so that the requests may be executed in due time.
Furthermore, in compliance with the Requirements for the technical certification of participants to the electronic payment system, each participant to the system must ensure its own business continuity, by implementing specific procedures and establishing a secondary site for recovery in the event of a disaster or, as the case may be, of some arrangements (agreements, contracts, various types of agreements with third parties, etc.) allowing for business continuity in the event of an incident at the main site. The procedures must ensure business continuity for the participant so that no incidents could lead to blocking, breaking the operation of the system or inducing systemic risk.
Settlement risk management
The system has implemented specific measures to prevent and solve cases of settlement failure.
Pricing policy
SaFIR applies a transparent 
pricing policy, the fees schedule being provided in Appendix 9 to the SaFIR System Rules.
Pricing policies applied to the systems administered by NBR are aimed at covering the costs arising from system operation with the revenues obtained.
User support service (helpdesk)
During SaFIR operating hours, NBR will provide participants with a permanent user support service (helpdesk), with following contact details:
Personal Data Protection
The National Bank of Romania, in its quality as a personal data operator, processes the personal data willingly supplied to, or in possession of which it comes indirectly, pursuant to the applicable national legislation in force, to the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation - GDPR), hereinafter referred to as GDPR and to the Law no. 506/2004 on the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector, in a secure manner, and intended solely for the purposes for which they were collected.
Information with regard to the processing of personal data concerning the SaFIR system is provided in Appendix 11 to SaFIR System Rules.
The data protection officer (DPO) of the National Bank of Romania may be contacted at datepersonale [at] bnro.ro and / or at the postal address: National Bank of Romania, 25 Lipscani Street, Bucharest 3, 030031 Romania.
Useful documentation and information
Statement of transactions:
Questionnaires and due diligence:
SaFIR User Committee