The main task for all companies is to take care of the service for the client, transfer payments for services conveniently, quickly and safely. Choosing a good payment acceptance system is a headache for all companies. How to choose and set it up so that buyers can pay from their country, to Europe, Asia and other countries? How to make it convenient, reliable and inexpensive for the company itself?
In this article, we will analyze common online payment systems, and how to choose and set up the right one for your business.

Payment system – a set of rules, procedures and technical infrastructure that ensure the transfer of value from one economic entity to another. Payment systems are one of the key parts of modern monetary systems.

It is usually understood that money is transferred through payment systems. From a legal point of view, in most cases, there is a transfer of debt: the funds that the payment system owes to one of the clients, becomes owed to another client. When the first client transfers his money to the payment system, the amount of such transfer is fixed, that is, the amount of debt to the first client. By his order, the client can indicate that the payment system now owes not to him, but to the second client. When the second client applies to the payment system, he has the opportunity to receive the cash equivalent of such a debt. In some cases, the means of payment are not money or debts denominated in money, but conditional payment units or specialized securities (an example is WMR, bitcoin).

Here are the most common payment systems :

SWIFT (worldwide) – Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications founded in 1973. 248 banks from 19 countries acted as co-founders. The headquarters of SWIFT is located in La Hulpe, Belgium. SWIFT is a cooperative society established under Belgian law and owned by its members. As of 2015, more than 11 thousand financial institutions in more than 200 countries of the world, including about 1000 corporations, are members of SWIFT. The average turnover is more than 30 million messages per day. (1)

BACS (United Kingdom) Bankers’ Automated Clearing System – this system was founded in 1968, and in 2018 became a subsidiary of the leading retail payment authority – Pay.UK.
There are a lot of UK banks and financial institutions participating in BACS, but customers should still check to see if their bank is sending and receiving such payments. BACS payments are considered among the most inexpensive and usually cost no more than 25p per transaction. Recipients are never charged. There are many suitable situations for a BACS payment and UK customers will benefit greatly if they know how to make it and what to expect from direct debit and direct credit. Such a transaction is considered one of the safest in Foggy Albion.
The BACS payment process typically takes 3 business days for both direct debit and direct credit. The transfer speed is affected by the time of day: payments are made only on weekdays from 7:00 to 22:30. (2)

SPFS – (Russian: Система передачи финансовых сообщений (СПФС), of the Bank of Russia is a Russian interbank system for transmitting financial information and making payments, which operates on the basis of the information and telecommunications system of the mega-regulator. As of the middle of 2018, more than 400 organizations were users of the SPFS, mainly Russian banks (almost all regions of Russia are represented). Thus, the number of Russian SPFS users exceeded the number of Russian SWIFT participants.
SPFS is still inferior to SWIFT in terms of functionality. It prohibits the transfer of funds abroad, does not allow sending mass registers as part of a single message, and has fairly stringent security requirements. (3)

SEPA – Single Euro Payments Area (Europe) is a payment-integration initiative of the European Union for simplification of bank transfers denominated in euro. As of 2020, there were 36 members in SEPA, consisting of the 27 member states of the European Union, the four member states of the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), and the United Kingdom.Some countries participate in the technical schemes: Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City. SEPA compares favorably with:
the speed of transfers is less than 24 hours, since penalties are charged for each day of delay (in favor of the sender); Low commissions – African countries at the expense of individual national payment systems; no need to attract additional accounts in different banks – all operations are carried out using the identifier of the financial bank itself; requirements and tools are the same for all participants in the zone; integration of mobile devices – almost all actions can be controlled from a smartphone; advanced internet banking. The disadvantage of the SEPA system is that transfers are made only in euros and cover only the Eurozone (countries that are part of the EU or member states of the European Economic Area). (4)

Until recently, the SWIFT system was popular all over the world. Today it has been supplanted by transfers via the SEPA system, however, only in the territory of the EEC. In other countries, SWIFT is still the most convenient and in demand.

What is the difference between these tools?
SWIFT allows you to make financial transactions around the world, SEPA – only in 36 European countries;
using SWIFT, payments are made in any currency, while SEPA provides for the use of euros only;
transaction times are also different – for SWIFT, money can go up to 5-7 days, for SEPA – from 1 second to 1 day.

Collect & Pay Ltd is providing international transfers via SWIFT and SEPA. These payment systems are the most relevant for managing business. If you have international partners that you would like to send and receive money with no delay and problems – contact us to open an account. [email protected]

Links:

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWIFT
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BACS
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPFS
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area