On a daily basis, NICS produces five multilateral net clearings. These are referred to as NICS Netto. The clearings include mass payments, card transactions, various high-value transactions, interbank loans and repayments of such loans between financial institutions. The number of daily clearings, submission deadlines etc. are regulated by NICS’ operating schedule, which is covered in Appendix 1 of NICS’ regulations. Clearings from NICS are sent to Norges Bank where they are settled via the bank’s settlement account in Norges Bank’s Settlement System (NBO) in accordance with NBO’s operating schedule.
All the financial institutions that participate in NICS are obliged to deliver transactions and receive account data to/from all clearings.
Financial institutions have to meet the following deadlines for NICS Netto:
- Morning-clearing 05.30am
- Mid-clearing no.1 09.30am
- Mid-clearing no.2 11.30am
- Mid-clearing no.3 1.30pm
- End-clearing 3.30pm
Clearings are sent to NBO for settlement shortly after the deadline has passed.
Payments over 25 million Norwegian Kroner (NOK) are processed separately through NICS Brutto (Gross settlement). Transactions that are processed via NICS Brutto are forwarded to Norges Bank immediately. Only banks that participate in NICS Level 1 can participate in NICS Brutto. Transactions sent through gross settlement can be sent in Swift or NIBE format. Level 1 banks can also send Swift transaction for processing in NICS Brutto, regardless of whether the amount is less than 25 million Kroner by marking the transaction REG or HASTE.
Processing of transactions in NICS consists of three main steps:
- Reception and control (validation) of transactions received from financial institutions and their serviceproviders (on behalf of banks). Transactions are received in SWIFT- format and national format; BOLS (card transactions) and NIBE.
- Configuration and transfer of settlement basis (clearing) for the bank settlements in Norges Banks settlement system, NBO.
- Disclosure of account data to banks following confirmation of settlement in Norges Bank.