Economics - Bank transfer - Work DorinM 4U

The transfer is the payment/transfer operation performed by a bank through which, at the order of its client and based on the available in his account, a sum of money will be transferred from the client's account to the account of a beneficiary designated by him, by debiting client's account and crediting the beneficiary's account.

At the basis of these operations is the scriptural currency (account money) representing the funds available in the bank accounts, money that circulated between these accounts through the transfer operations.

These scriptural currencies can be both national currencies (in the case of our country RON) and currencies of other states (currency or foreign exchange) which determines a delimitation of the account money and their placement in different accounts: accounts in RON and accounts in foreign currency.

For this reason, depending on the currency in which the transfer is made, there will be transfers in RON and transfers in foreign currency.

SWIFT transfer scrolling

A particularly of the transfer is represented by the placement of the banks that form the circuit between the authorizing officer and the beneficiary. If the transfer is made between banks in the same state, we can talk about a national transfer (which can be between subsidiaries, branches of the same bank, or between different banks involving the transfer of funds between them) or, if it is made between banks located in different states, we can talk about an international transfer (which has the same specificity with the difference that it involves an international transfer of funds).

The national transfers are made by means of inter-bank communication, following strict procedures specific to the national banking structure but also to the operational particularities of each bank in part, their realization being classic (for a period of 1-2 days) or telex type, or other modern communications type (transfer made on the current day of submission of the payment order, etc. by the payer).

There are some peculiarities when using foreign currency payments, especially in countries with foreign exchange retention (as was the case with Romania) where certain specific procedures are followed, most often imposed by national legislation or NBR instructions.

These procedures mainly affect the way in which payments are made in foreign currency because there are accounts in the national currency and accounts in foreign currency, depending on whether or not the necessary cash is available and also whether it is possible for the bank to purchase of the available funds in national currency the required foreign currency requested for make the transfer.

Most international transfers are made in the case of foreign trade operations, when it is necessary to make a payment by the importer (his bank) and make the transfer to the exporter (his bank).

The transfer of funds is done by different methods based on various reasons that are not covered by this presentation. It should be noted only that the actual transfer is most often made before the actual transfer of funds, based on bank or national agreements which give the guarantee of the transfer of funds.

In addition, it can be mentioned that in the desire to eliminate the shortcomings of the classic ways of transferring mail, telex, etc. and in order to meet the requirements of speed, confidentiality and security imposed by international transactions, the "SWIFT" (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) was set up (May 1973), which is an international electronic inter-bank communication network.

SWIFT is designed in a modular way and comprises three levels of operation: 1. the bank with its own terminal, 2. the national accumulator with the role of information concentration node (at national level) and 3. the switching center represented by a relay in SWIFT system that ensures the networking of the countries that are assigned. There are currently 3 such switching centers:

- in the USA, with countries in North America, South America and the Far East;

- in Belgium (Brussels), with European countries such as France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Denmark and Israel;

- in the Netherlands (Zoeterwonde) where there are two switches, one for Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary and one for the United Kingdom, the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Greece, Portugal, and others.

In order to make SWIFT transfers, the buyer (payment debtor) performs the usual operations of any payment to a payee. The main role in this transfer mode is played by the bank that sends coded messages in the inter-bank network requesting, like any other procedure, the execution of the transfer to the beneficiary's bank, the transfer being made in 20 minutes (normal procedure) or 5 minutes (emergency procedure).