The RIX system is the central point of the Swedish payment system. The major banks have accounts with the Riksbank in the same way that companies and individuals have accounts with banks. The Riksbank thus functions as the banks' bank for payments in Swedish kronor. RIX is the system that manages payments to and from the banks' accounts with the Riksbank. Payments where more than one bank is involved therefore ultimately go through RIX.
A payment normally begins with the sender or recipient giving a payment order. The payment is then settled when the actual transfer is made to the recipient's account. After this, information is usually sent to both the sender and recipient that the payment has been implemented.
The settlement of payments in RIX usually follows the principle of real-time gross settlement, RTGS. This means that payments are settled one at a time and that the funds transferred to participants' accounts become immediately accessible in the accounts and can be used for other payments.
Payments in RIX can be divided into payments the banks make on behalf of customers and payments made directely between banks that are members of RIX.
In addition to the large banks, it is mainly clearing organisations that are members of RIX; see the figure below.
There is a very large turnover in RIX. One week's turnover in RIX corresponds to the entire Swedish annual gross domestic product, GDP. The figure below shows the amounts processed in RIX on a typical day in February 2006.
Amounts are stated in daily figures of SEK billion, February 2006.
Notes:
1. Covers all spot trading and the derivatives trading that leads to transfer of ownership of the underlying security.
2. Refers to the payment for derivative transactions settled on the stock exchange. The statistics thus include only the derivative transactions that actually generate a payment, which is only a small part of all transactions as derivative positions are to a great extent netted between participants.
3. Refers to payments in SEK for foreign exchange transactions between Swedish banks, usually based on foreign exchange contracts. The majority of these payments are made through CLS. The payments abroad that originate directly from foreign exchange transactions are settled in CLS.
4. Refers to interbank payments regarding foreign exchange transactions, e.g. the sort of transfer between a Swedish bank and a foreign bank's account with another bank, which arises during foreign exchange transactions between two Swedish banks or between a Swedish bank and a foreign bank.
5. Refers to payments in SEK that go to a Swedish bank, which in turn acts as correspondent bank for a foreign bank, also known as foreign clearing.
6. Refers to payments in SEK between Swedish banks in Sweden.
7. For settlement from the fixed income market and the stock market VPC administers the accounts in RIX.
The statistics in the figure show the flow in RIX. The corresponding flows for a number of years are shown in Table Z in the Table Appendix. Transactions to and from the clearing organisations employing netting, i.e. CLS, BGC and Stockholmsbörsen, are handled slightly differently in the statistics compared with other payments. A normal gross payment is made as a direct transfer between the two payments; one from the sending bank to the clearing organisation and one from the clearing organisation to the receving bank. In order to study the netting effect, i.e. the difference between gross and net flows, the net amounts from the respective clearing organisations to RIX need to be halved, in principle.
At the clearing stage, there are checks to ensure the payment order is correct and that there are sufficient funds to cover the payment. In addition, instructions are compiled for settling the transfer.
To ensure that all payments can be settled both efficiently and with the minimum amount of risk, participants can borrow during the day, known as intraday credit, from the Riksbank. There are no formal limits for this type of credit, as long as the participants have adequate collateral.
There is a special method for settlement of transactions from the stock market and debt market. To reduce the risks when settling transactions from the securities markets, it is important to ensure that the transfer or securities can be made at the same time as the transfer or the payment. As Värdepapperscentralen, VPC, is the organisation that keeps records of who owns various securities, the Riksbank has given VPC the right to book transactions in special accounts in RIX. Participants in RIX can during the course of the day, via what is known as a liquidity bridge, transfer liquidity between their normal RIX accounts and the payment accounts administered by VPC.
The Riksbank has a responsibility to oversee all central parts of the payment system, including the RIX system. Part of this oversight involves regularly assessing the system against the various applicable international standards. With regard to systemically-important payment systems such as RIX, international standards have been established by the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems, CPSS, within the Bank for International Settlements, BIS. The Riksbank's most recent assessment in the light of these standards was made in 2005 and is published under the link below "Assessment of the Riksbank’s Payment System RIX, 2005.".
For a more detailed description of the RIX system, see the link below to "The Riksbank as operator of RIX".