Circular No. 3060 — Establishes Operating Rules for the Bank Reserves Account Held by Financial Institutions at the Central Bank of Brazil

CIRCULAR NO. 003060

Establishes operating rules for the Bank Reserves account, held by financial institutions at the Central Bank of Brazil, within the scope of the Restructuring of the Brazilian Payments System.

The Collegiate Board of the Central Bank of Brazil, in a session held on September 19, 2001, based on Article 10, items III and IV, of Law No. 4.595 of December 31, 1964, with the wording given to it by Articles 19 and 20 of Law No. 7.730 of January 31, 1989,

D E C I D E D:

Art. 1. It is established that, from June 24, 2002, the account 6115.10.10-9 - Bank Reserves, which financial institutions maintain at the Central Bank of Brazil, may not present a negative balance at any moment during the day.

Art. 2. From April 22, 2002, the Central Bank of Brazil:

I - will execute, in real time, the monitoring of the balance and financial settlement of obligations in the Bank Reserves account;

II - will offer a mechanism for resource transfer, in real time, operation by operation, directly between Bank Reserves accounts; and

III - will only admit the financial settlement directly in the Bank Reserves account of financial results from clearing houses and providers of clearing and settlement services, whose systems have been evaluated and judged to be adequately structured, in accordance with current regulation.

Art. 3. The following schedule is defined for the migration of the current communication system of financial institutions with the Central Bank of Brazil, regarding the information on financial movements to be carried out in the Bank Reserves account:

I - from June 1, 2001, to April 17, 2002: execution of integrated system tests between the Central Bank of Brazil, the clearing houses, the providers of clearing and settlement services, and the institutions holding the Bank Reserves account, with the enabling of the latter by this Autarchy, when the tests are successful, observing the following phases:

a) Phase I - Infrastructure Tests - from June 1, 2001, to September 26, 2001 - comprise tests to verify connection to the National Financial System Network (RSFN), through the selected providers, using all installed equipment and applications, the digital certification provided by authorized companies, and encrypted messages;

b) Phase II - System Tests - from June 1, 2001, to March 25, 2002 - comprise integrated and complete tests of all messages provided for in the Message Catalog of the Brazilian Payments System (SPB), with the transmission of messages to all parties involved in each of the operations, when all possible situations for each of the scenarios chosen by the financial institution will be evaluated and validated, and the following systems will be tested:

STR - Reserve Transfer System;
LDL - Multilateral Clearing Settlement System; RDC - Central Bank Rediscount System; SEL - Special Settlement and Custody System - Selic; STN - National Treasury System; LTR - Gross or Bilateral Settlement System of Operations; CIR - Circulating Medium System; RCO - Mandatory Reserve Collection System; and SLB - Central Bank Posting System

c) Phase III - Daily Operation Simulation Tests - until April 16, 2002 - are intended to simulate a normal day of operation for a financial institution;

d) Phase IV - Load Tests - until March 27, 2002 - are intended to evaluate the operational capacity of the systems at full load, with participants prepared to receive and process messages defined in the SPB Message Catalog. The Central Bank of Brazil, all financial institutions, and the clearing houses and providers of clearing and settlement services must evaluate whether their computer infrastructure (machines, applications, and communication network) meets the minimum standards required for operation;

e) Phase V - Implementation Day Tests - until April 17, 2002 - are intended to verify the preparation of the production environment for the implementation day;

II - from September 26, 2001, the clearing houses and providers of clearing and settlement services must be prepared for tests with their participants through messages or via applications of existing systems, depending on the adopted solution, with simulation of the respective financial settlement executed through messages in the STR system.

III - from February 13, 2002: start of sending and receiving messages related to the National Treasury System, to be defined by the Department of Informatics (Deinf), in a production environment;

IV - from April 22, 2002: start of operation of the Central Bank of Brazil subsystems under the concept of Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), with transition rules for the functioning of the Bank Reserves account;

V - from June 24, 2002: start of operation of the Central Bank of Brazil subsystems under the concept of Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), with final rules for the functioning of the Bank Reserves account.

Paragraph 1. The Department of Open Market Operations (Demab) and the Department of Informatics (Deinf) will publish the detailed testing schedule, confirming, with a minimum advance notice of one week, the dates of their execution.

Paragraph 2. At the discretion of the Central Bank of Brazil, weekends may be defined for the execution of preliminary system load tests.

Paragraph 3. The clearing houses and providers of clearing and settlement services must establish and promote basic tests of their messages and applications with their clients.

Paragraph 4. All messages transmitted on the RSNF must be encrypted and digitally signed.

Art. 4. The Bank Reserves account may present a debit balance, before the time scheduled for its closure, of up to 100% (one hundred percent) of the Reference Equity (RE) indicated in the last balance sheet published by the institution holding the account, during the period from April 22, 2002, to May 17, 2002, reducing to 50% (fifty percent) of the RE, in the period from May 20, 2002, to June 21, 2002.

Sole Paragraph. The occurrence of a debit balance in the Bank Reserves account at the end of the day will not be tolerated.

Art. 5. Financial institutions must send to the Direct Supervision Department (Desup), by the next business day following the end of each testing phase defined in item I of Article 3 of this Circular, and of intermediate stages that may be subsequently established, a declaration signed by the director responsible for the implementation of the Brazilian Payments System and by the head of internal audit, attesting to the compliance with the stage and the aptitude of the institution to carry out, in a production environment, the activity defined therein, or to present the appropriate justifications for its eventual non-compliance or inaptitude.

Art. 6. Financial institutions must maintain complete documentation of the entire process of elaboration, validation, and implementation of the adaptations necessary to comply with the established schedule, with a view to possible analysis by the Central Bank of Brazil.

Paragraph 1. The documentation referred to in this article must be approved and signed by a statutory director of the institution.

Paragraph 2. Financial institutions must maintain a statutory director responsible, before the Central Bank of Brazil, for the observance of the guidelines established for the implementation of the Brazilian Payments System Restructuring Project.

Paragraph 3. The replacement of the responsible director referred to in the previous paragraph must be communicated immediately, via electronic mail, through transaction PMSG750 of the Central Bank Information System - Sisbacen, addressed to the Department of Registration and Financial System Information (Decad).

Art. 7. The Department of Banking Operations and Payment Systems (Deban), the Deinf, and the Demab are authorized to issue the complementary norms necessary for the operationalization of the tests referred to in this Circular.

Art. 8. This circular enters into force on the date of its publication.

Art. 9. Circular 3.032 of May 10, 2001, is hereby revoked.

Brasília, September 20, 2001

Luiz Fernando Figueiredo Tereza Cristina Grossi Togni Director Director

Edison Bernardes dos Santos
Director