2012-03-06
On the amendment by the Bank of Lithuania of the Rules of Operation of the Payment System LITAS-RLS, domestic credit institutions will avoid the cost of currency exchange through payment for the operations involving VISA payment cards issued in Lithuania in national currency.
In 2010, the Bank of Lithuania was addressed by representatives of the VISA payment card scheme concerning a possibility to effect payments of its members – credit institutions – via their accounts with the Bank of Lithuania in national currency. With the implementation of the VISA initiative credit institutions participating in this model will avoid the cost of currency exchange.
For the Bank of Lithuania this will be a new type of relationship with a payment agent acting from another state and using the SWIFT network for the interface with the system. The amendments to the Rules of Operation of the Payment System LITAS-RLS establish the operational aspects characteristic of such a participant. The Rules of Operation of the Payment System LITAS-RLS have also been supplemented with the procedure for indemnity, which has been developed taking into account the application of such instrument in other real-time payment systems (e.g., TARGET2-LIETUVOS BANKAS). It provides favourable conditions for regulating the claims of participants of the system LITAS-RLS against the Bank of Lithuania extrajudicially, where, due to technical failures in the system, payment instructions submitted by the participants were not settled during the business day of the system.
Participation in the Real-time Gross Settlement System LITAS-RLS includes the Bank of Lithuania, domestic commercial banks, foreign bank branches and the Lithuanian Central Credit Union. These systems are also available to financial brokerage companies and the AB Central Securities Depository of Lithuania.