Banca Naţională a României

The National Bank of Romania cuts by 15% the fees charged for settlement of large-value or urgent payments via ReGIS (Real Time Gross Settlement System)

The new fee, effective 1 April 2007, will be RON 8.03 for large-value or urgent payments carried out via ReGIS (compared with RON 9.45 at present).

The National Bank of Romania considers that the reduction in electronic payment system fees will bring about changes in the credit institutions' fee policy on payment and settlement services provided to their customers. Moreover, the cut in financial intermediation costs will help boost cashless activities in Romania.

The central bank will take further steps to lower fees charged to participants in ReGIS with a view to gradually bringing them close to the levels applied by the central banks that are members of the European System of Central Banks.

The electronic payment system components were put into operation as follows:

• ReGIS (real time gross settlement system) managed by the National Bank of Romania - on 8 April 2005;
• ACH (Automated Clearing House) managed by TRANSFOND-SA - on 13 May 2005; and
• SaFIR (settlement and financial instruments registration) managed by the National Bank of Romania - on 3 October 2005.

Since the coming into operation of ReGIS, the National Bank of Romania, as the system manager, has been steadily lowering fees, as follows:

* Prior to the coming into operation of ReGIS (8 April 2005), the applicable fee stood at RON 30.