1. ELECTRONIC FUNDS TRANSFER FINANCIAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS

2. EFT SYSTEM TIC-RTGS Turkish Interbank Clearing Real Time Gross Settlement

3. Brief Hıstory TIC-RTGS commenced operation on 1 April 1992. On 24 April 2000, the second generation TIC-RTGS System, which brought several new functions and changes to software and hardware, replaced its predecessor..

4. OWNER and OPERATOR Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) is both the owner and the operator of the systems. The operational responsibility belongs to Electronic Payments Department of Accounting Division, Technical responsibility belongs to Payment Systems Department of Data Processing Division.

5. BASIC STRUCTURE A message switching system (SWITCH) acts as an interface between TIC-RTGS / ESTS and the participating banks. TIC- RTGS is directly connected to the SWITCH. The participant banks connect to the SWITCH through a proprietary network (TICNET).

6. Properties of TIC-RTGS Real Time Gross Settlement Each payment message sent to the system is processed real time and individually (hence, gross settlement). On receiving a payment message, if the balance of the sender’s account permits, the system debits the sender and credits the receiver. If there are no sufficient funds in the sender’s account, the payment is queued. The receiver may use the incoming funds as soon as the account of the receiver is credited.

7. Properties of TIC-RTGS Crediting System A participant can only credit a participant’s account. Only the CBRT may perform direct debiting when deemed necessary. Irreversible and Irrevocable Operations The receiver may return an erroneous payment to its sender via a new payment message. Value Limits There is no lower limit for the value of payments. TIC-RTGS accepts both low value customer payments as well as high value payments.

8. Properties of TIC-RTGS Special Accounts TIC-RTGS holds an account for each participant. Participants transfer funds between their TIC-RTGS accounts and their accounts at CBRT. Queuing Participants may send their payments to the system irrespective of their account balance.Payments are queued at the TIC-RTGS center until the account has sufficient funds. Settlement order of queued payments depends on the priorities determined by the sender and the issue time. Daylight overdraft CBRT provides a collateralised daylight overdraft facility to resolve emergent liquidity problems. Participants are required to pay back the funs at the end of the business day.

9. Properties of TIC-RTGS Gridlock Resolution The system automatically monitors whether the queued payments are stuck in a gridlock. Gridlocks are resolved by running a special purpose algorithm. Message Bulking Low value payments can be grouped according to different criteria and can be sent at small time intervals. Account Debiting Upon Approval A participant may request a payment to be initiated by another participant. The payment is sent only after having been approved by the participant to be debited.

10. Operating Days and Hours TIC-RTGS / ESTS operates every weekday, except for the official holidays. The System opens for business at 8 a.m. On every workday, the participants should logon to the System by 9 a.m. TIC-RTGS / ESTS closes at 5:30 a.m. on regular workdays However, closing time may be changed by the CBRT in case of heavy message traffic or an abnormal condition. End-of- day procedures are completed on participant site at the end of each workday.

11. Operating Days and Hours The System is closed for message traffic as long as reconciliation housekeeping process continues. Once the reconciliation housekeeping is completed, the system opens for message traffic with the next business date.

12. Pricing The CBRT charges the TIC-RTGS / ESTS participants in order to cover the investment and operational cost related to central hardware and software. The pricing is per message. For payment messages, depending on the payment amount, the price may be fixed or proportional to the message amount. As for the query messages and reports, the price is calculated depending on the overhead of producing the result. The message tariff is annually announced in the CBRT’s Instruction on Tariffs.

13. Components of TIC-RTGS

14. Central System TIC-RTGS central system holds the settlement accounts, transfers and settles the payments and produces related reports. During the business day, this component receives electronic messages sent by the participants, credits the settlement account of the receiving participant by debiting the sender’s account if its balance suffices; and forwards the message to the receiver. If the sender’s balance is not sufficient, the payment is queued and is automatically processed whenever the balance is suitable. TIC-RTGS central system sends reconciliation reports to the participants and the CBRT at the end of day.

15. Participant Relay Computer Each participant of the TIC-RTGS / ESTS should have a relay computer (RC) and the appropriate software in order to send / receive messages to / from the System. The CBRT is responsible for the RC software. Hence, any updates or upgrades are done by the CBRT. Using the RC, the participant accesses to the TIC-RTGS / ESTS Centre, prepares the messages to be sent, releases the prepared messages, receives the incoming messages, enquires message status or balances of the settlement account or security sub-accounts during or at the end of the business day, produces reports and creates archives for the sent / received messages. The participant either directly uses the RC terminals or any remote terminals connected to the RC.

16. Participant Host Computer Participants may connect their RCs to their host computers using a special protocol. This enables them to use the host computer, as well as the RC, for sending, receiving or enquiring messages.

17. Proprietary Network: TICNET A proprietary network, called TICNET, is used for communication between RCs and the TIC-RTGS / ESTS Centre. The coverage of TICNET starts at the modem connecting the RC to the network line and ends at the network switch connection to the Central System in Ankara. There are two private network switches in Ankara and one in Istanbul. The participants access to the TIC-RTGS / ESTS Centre through these switches and via leased lines. High-speed and backed-up leased lines connect all the switches to each other.

18. Participant Systems Relay Computer: HP Alpha DS15 O/S: Open VMS 7.3-2 Application Software: FASTWIRE Core Services Subservices Programming Language: C DBMS: TMAN, developed for FASTWIRE Transaction Management: PSI, developed for FASTWIRE

19. What the Participant Banks Can Do: Prepare messages Send the message to the centre to be delivered to the receiver Receive messages Execute queries in or at the end of the day Generate reports and Archive incoming and outgoing messages

20. The Communication Network Network is called TICNET Used for message delivery purposes Works on X25 protocol System is designed to keep working on error by finding resources (back-ups). System is considered to be migrated to TCP/IP in 2005.

21. The Central Systems EFT, EST, Redirecting System Programming Language: C++ DBMS: IBM Informix (Relational) Transaction Processing And Monitoring: Tuxedo Server/Client Architecture Informix: Reliable and Safe Good Rollback Interprocess Synchronization ONTIME BACKUP Tuxedo: Reliable Queuing Global Transaction Logic for consistency IPC(Interprocess Communication) Enables communication with both Unix Servers and PCs