System of Electronic Payments

The National Bank of Ukraine has established a national electronic payment system called SEP to process hryvnia settlements between banks and clients within Ukraine. The NBU is the payment institution and settlement bank for the SEP.

The SEP ensures secure and reliable transfers of funds between banks.

The SEP services 96% of interbank payments in Ukraine, which makes it a systemically important payment system.

The SEP is a real-time gross settlement system (RTGS international classification) and it allows payments in real time and batch mode.

In real-time mode, funds are credited to a receiving bank’s account instantly, whereas in batch mode, a payment from a remitting bank to a receiving bank may take an average 10 to 20 minutes.

The NBU, Ukrainian banks, and the State Treasury Service of Ukraine are participants in the SEP.

The SEP processes 1.6 million daily payments on average at a value of UAH 199 billion. However, its capacity is much higher: the system is capable of processing almost 10 times more transactions.

What is the System of Electronic Payments of the National Bank of Ukraine (SEP)?

The System of Electronic Payments of the National Bank of Ukraine (SEP) is a systemically important payment system, which was developed by the NBU to enable interbank money transfers in the domestic currency within Ukraine via accounts opened with the NBU.

What is the execution period for an interbank money transfer?

An interbank money transfer is executed within the period of up to three operational days.

This is provided for by Article 8 of the Law of Ukraine On Payment Systems and Money Transfer in Ukraine.

An operational day means the time within a business day of a bank or an institution participating in a payment system, over which they accept transfer and revocation documents from customers and may process, transfer, and execute these documents, where this is technically possible. Banks or institutions participating in a payment system determine the duration of their operational day at their own discretion and document this duration in their internal regulations.

What document provides for the terms of participating in, joining, and quitting SEP?

Guidelines on Domestic Currency Interbank Money Transfers in Ukraine approved by NBU Board Resolution No. 320 dated 16 August 2006.