Circular No. 3985 — Establishes provisions regarding participation modalities and criteria in the instant payment arrangement and the Instant Payment System (SPI) and direct access criteria to the Transactional Account Identifiers Directory (DICT)

The Collegiate Board of the Central Bank of Brazil, in a session held on February 12, 2020, based on item IV of Article 10 of Law No. 4,595 of December 31, 1964, Article 10 of Law No. 10,214 of March 27, 2001, Articles 9, 10, 14, and 15 of Law No. 12,865 of October 9, 2013, Articles 9 and 11 of Resolution No. 2,882 of August 30, 2001, and considering the provisions of Article 7 of Law No. 12,865 of 2013 and Resolution 4,282 of November 4, 2013,

RESOLVES:

Article 1. This Circular establishes, for the purposes of their respective implementation processes, the provisions related to the modalities and criteria for participation in the instant payment arrangement and in the Instant Payment System (SPI) and the criteria for direct access to the Transactional Account Identifiers Directory (DICT).

Article 2. For the purposes of this Circular, the following are considered:

I - instant payment arrangement: arrangement instituted by the Central Bank of Brazil that regulates the provision of payment services related to instant payment transactions;

II - direct connection to the SPI: capacity to send and receive messages from the system, connecting directly to the National Financial System Network (RSFN) or through an Information Technology Service Provider (PSTI);

III - Instant Payment Account (Conta PI): account held at the Central Bank of Brazil for settlement purposes within the SPI;

IV - transactional account: account held by an end user in a payment service provider and used for the purpose of making or receiving an instant payment, which may be a demand deposit account, a savings deposit account, or a prepaid payment account;

V - Transactional Account Identifiers Directory (DICT): component of the instant payment arrangement that stores information about receiving users and their respective transactional accounts, which can be located through addressing keys;

VI - instant payment: electronic transfer of funds in which the transmission of the payment order and the availability of funds for the receiving user occur in real time and whose service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and on all days of the year;

VII - Instant Payment System (SPI): centralized infrastructure for settling instant payments that involve movements between participants holding a Conta PI.

Article 3. The instant payment arrangement admits the following participation modalities:

I - payment service provider that maintains a transactional account: financial institution or payment institution that offers a transactional account to the end user, including payment institutions not subject to authorization for operation by the Central Bank of Brazil;

II - government entity: body of the direct administration that participates in the instant payment arrangement exclusively to make or receive its own payments.

Article 4. Participation in the instant payment arrangement is mandatory for financial institutions and payment institutions authorized to operate by the Central Bank of Brazil with more than 500,000 (five hundred thousand) active client accounts, considering demand deposit accounts, savings deposit accounts, and prepaid payment accounts.

Article 5. Instant payment transactions involving different participating institutions in the arrangement must be settled through the SPI whenever they involve a transfer between Conta PIs of different direct participants of the SPI.

Sole Paragraph. If different participants in the arrangement use the settlement service of the same direct participant of the SPI, the settlement of instant payment transactions between these different participants must be carried out in the systems of the direct participant itself, without the use of the SPI.

Article 6. Participation in the SPI is:

I - mandatory, for participants in the instant payment arrangement, for the purposes of settlement referred to in Article 5; and

II - optional, for clearing houses and providers of clearing and settlement services, exclusively for the purposes of settling private operations of liquidity supply carried out between participants in the SPI within the infrastructure.

Article 7. The SPI admits the following participation modalities:

I - direct: characterized by the direct connection of the participating institution to the SPI and the ownership of a Conta PI;

II - indirect: the participating institution does not have a direct connection to the SPI nor a Conta PI, and its participation occurs through a direct participant of the SPI, responsible for registering the indirect participant in the system and acting as a settler in the SPI for instant payments related to it.

§ 1. Participation in the indirect modality is prohibited for commercial banks, multiple banks with a commercial portfolio, savings banks, and clearing houses and providers of clearing and settlement services.

§ 2. Participation in the direct modality is prohibited for payment institutions that do not have authorization for operation granted by the Central Bank of Brazil.

Article 8. All transactional account providers participating in the instant payment arrangement that participate in the SPI in the direct modality must access the DICT directly.

Article 9. The Department of Competition and Financial Market Structure (Decem), the Department of Banking Operations and Payment Systems (Deban), and the Department of Information Technology (Deinf) are authorized to adopt the necessary measures for the execution of the provisions of this Circular, including establishing procedures for the homologation and accreditation of participants in the instant payment arrangement and in the SPI.

Article 10. This Circular enters into force on March 2, 2020.

Bruno Serra Fernandes
Monetary Policy Director

João Manoel Pinho de Mello
Director of System Organization
Financial and Resolution