Interbank networks & Payment networks

[italkcash]

Interbank networks are usually bank ATM networks and most notably they are linked together in order to make payments from cards and merchants to flow together. In general its a very chaotic concept as it compromises of banks, credit institutions and a myriad of payment solutions.

For consumers interbank networks are recognized through the usage of credit and debit cards, while for banks interbank networks are used for clearing, settlement and payment processing.

For unknown reasons most interbank networks have succumbed to the Visa and Mastercard duo-poly, despite the fact that they have a perfect domestic network, which allows for domestic credit and debit cards. One reason could although be that the Americans from the very beginning had a much better success implementing both card and interbank networks and expanded earlier abroad.

That picture is rapidly changing now, where the likes of China with their CUP card is starting to gain acceptance by being offered in other interbank networks, such as the Discover interbank network and visa versa.

Currently the following interbank networks exist:

Mayor Interbank Networks
(Mayor Interbank Networks compromises of multi-country reach networks only)

• Cirrus (Mastercard, Maestro Card & Diners Card)
• PLUS (Visa & Visa Electron)
• Discover Card Network (Discover Card, Diners Card & Diners Carte Blanche)
• EAPS Card Network (No card currently exist for this network)
• SEPA (Single European Payments Area)
• CUP (China UnionPay)
• Pulse (Purchased by Discovery and entered an agreement with the Chinese CUP)
• NETS (Scandinavian network Teller in Norway and PBS in Denmark
• JCB (Japanese system, currently has a worldwide reach and own cards)
• American Express (An American high standard card system)
• Euronet
  
  
  Minor and Domestic Interbank Networks
  (Minor Interbank Networks compromises of domestic networks only)
  
  
  
• Link (UK interbank network, a part of EAPS)
• PayFair (SEPA initiative launched in Belgium)
• Pago Bancomat (Italian network, a part of EAPS)
• Girocard (German network, a part of EAPS)
• EUFiserv (Multi country interbank network, but now a part of EAPS)
• Euro6000 (Spanish network, now a part of EAPS)
• Multibanko (Spanish network, now a part of EAPS)
• STAR (American network, currently the largest in the USA)
• National Payment Card System (NPCS) (Russian network)
• SUM (American network)
• Otto. (Finnish network)
• ATH (Caribbean network)
  
  
  Payment Networks
  
  Payment Networks are known to be primarily online and not having entered into any direct Bank/ATM cooperation.
  
  
• Liberty Reserve (A stand alone online payment system)
• AlertPay (Online payment system, hooked up to Mastercard currently)