Home     TARGET     CEC     Clearing House     Links     Contact     

ELLIPS is the Belgian interbank interface with the Belgian real time gross settlement system[1], and is a part of TARGET, the payment sytem of the ESCB for the euro. ELLIPS went live on 24 September 1996. This was the result of an intensive co-operation effort between the Belgian banking sector and the National Bank of Belgium (NBB).

ELLIPS, along with the CEC (Centre for Exchange and Clearing), are the two integrated and automated payment systems which are organised and managed by the NBB on the interbank level for the automated treatment and settlement of cashless payments.

ELLIPS is an acronym for ELectronic Large value Interbank Payments System.

• ELectronic:
  all information concerning payments in ELLIPS is exchanged in an electronic way. SWIFT has been chosen as the network.
• Large value:
  ELLIPS mainly processes large value credit transfers. However, payments with a lower value are also accepted.
• Interbank:
  only banks participate in ELLIPS.
• Payments System:
  ELLIPS only processes credit transfers.

[1] The Belgian real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) is composed on the one hand of ELLIPS, the interbank communication interface, and on the other hand of RECOUR, the current accounts system of the National Bank of Belgium.