Instant Payments in BrightOS are Now Available in Local Currency Thanks to Team Tokyo

Our team recently implemented a project on instant payments in BGN (Blink) which lays out an opportunity for banks to provide their clients with a service for initiating or receiving a transfer with immediate settlement in BGN within 10 seconds. Instant payments are payment transactions available 24/7/365, as a result of which the payee's payment account is credited with immediate effect.

It is envisaged that such payments can be used both by individuals and by merchants, from Internet banking, mobile banking, retail outlets, Internet sites, terminals and self-service machines, mobile applications, offices of institutions, ATMs, etc.

The Instant Payments Program aims to synchronize the current payment rules in Bulgaria with the European Payments Council's scheme for instant payments in euro, within the Single Euro Payments Area - SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme. The maximum amount of transfer is up to BGN 100,000, and the format of the messages for data exchange between financial institutions is based on the ISO 20022 XML standard.

At the beginning of 2020, we successfully implemented another similar project, which made our client TBI Bank Bulgaria the first bank in the country to offer the service of sending and receiving real-time SEPA transfers in euro. Then we announced that BrightOS is the first core banking system with integrated solution of this kind in our country. As a result of the recently completed new project, our clients TBI Bank Bulgaria and Bulgarian Post Bank now have in their systems functionality for immediate transactions also in local currency, namely BGN.

The project for instant payments in BGN was developed by our team called Tokyo. This is the team that also developed the initial project for SEPA transfers in euro. More about the team will tell us its leader - Mariana.

Why did you choose this name for your team?

Mariana: We associate Tokyo with one of the most developed cities in the world, and the keystone about them is the advanced technology - robots, arrow trains, smartphones of the future, drones, etc. In our team we also rely on new technologies and ideas.

What projects has your team been involved in during the past months?

Mariana: We deal with projects related to immediate payments in BGN, Target 2, as well as loans registered through various channels.

What were the challenges and difficulties you faced during the implementation of the project for immediate payments in BGN?

Mariana: The main challenges and difficulties were related to the implementation of the standard for signing xml messages (XML-DSig), integrated with SafeNet HSM devices for storing digital certificates. Through this integration we ensured a secure exchange of payments between individual financial institutions, which is of significant importance for our customers. In addition, we developed some new for us messages for data exchange between financial institutions, which had to comply with the ISO 20022 XML standard.

What did you learn thanks to the project and would you apply in the future?

Mariana: We have deffinetly enriched our knowledge of ISO standards for payments between financial institutions. In addition, through this project we laid the foundation for the next one, related to package payments. Our goal is to continue to provide our customers with software solutions that are up-to-date, support a variety of processes in the financial institutions and meet international standards.