According to the BIS, a credit transfer is a payment order made for the purpose of placing funds at the disposal of the beneficiary, with the payment instructions and funds moving from the bank of the payer/originator to the bank of the beneficiary, possibly via several other banks as intermediaries and/or more than one credit transfer system.
Data is from the Bank for International Settlements’ Statistics on payment, clearing and settlement systems in the CPSS countries. Report published January 2013 with figures on 2011.
Use of Credit Transfers by Non-Banks (Total Number of Transactions in Millions, 2011)
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* Sum or average excluding those countries for which data are not available. For credit transfers, data for France (prior to 2005) and the United Kingdom include interbank transactions; however, the total number is relatively small.
Use of Credit Transfers by Non-Banks (Total Value of Transactions in USD Billions, 2011)
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* Sum or average excluding those countries for which data are not available. For credit transfers, data for France (prior to 2005) and the United Kingdom include interbank transactions; however, the total number is relatively small.
** For credit transfers and e-money payment transactions, total transactions during the fiscal year ending March of the following year, converted at average fiscal year exchange rates.
*** Sum or average excluding those countries for which data are not available. For credit transfers, data for France (prior to 2005) and the United Kingdom include interbank transactions. Since the value of these transactions is relatively large, cross-country comparison should be treated with caution; consequently, CPSS figures related to credit transfers have not been calculated.
A credit transfer system is a funds transfer system through which payment orders move from the originator’s bank to the receiver’s (beneficiary’s) bank.
The use of credit transfers as a payment instrument in major markets increased steadily between 2007 and 2010, with the exception of a few European countries, namely France and Germany, which saw a drop in the number of such transactions in 2007-2008, at the onset of the global financial crisis. By 2011 things returned to normal almost everywhere.
By value of transactions, things have also been generally on the upswing lately, and although growth was slow in 2007-2008, by 2011 all countries ranked by the BIS except Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom saw the value of credit transfers surpass their pre-crisis levels. This followed a period — between 2009 and 2010 — during which euro zone countries, with the currency union in the grip of the ravaging sovereign debt crisis, experience halting growth in terms credit transfers, including contractions in Belgium, France and Germany.
