The Payments System in the Dominican Republic (SIPARD) is made up of:

·payment instruments (checks, debit cards, credit cards,  prepaid cards, direct credits and debits (standing orders), payment orders, Electronic Funds Transfers (EFT), and others),

·communication networks,

·organizations that offer and operate the instruments and the communication networks, and

·laws, market conventions, standards, and procedures to facilitate the funds transfers.

SIPARD is therefore a central component of the dominican financial system and can be seen as the infrastructure that provides the economy with the means to process the payments that are the result of a great variety of monetary transactions.

Processes in a payment system

The payment systems include the following processes:

 Beginning of the payment - instruction given by a participant through a subsystem, to make available a specific amount of money to the beneficiary designated in the instruction, or to assume or to settle a payment obligation, as defined in the operating standards of the subsystem.

Authorization of the payment - means by which the payer authorizes its bank to transfer funds.

Clearing - process of transmission, reconciliation, and in some cases, confirmation of payment orders or instructions for securities transfers, prior to the final settlement, possibly calculating gross or net settlement final positions (payables and receivables) for each participant. The clearinghouse is the system where these actions take place.

Settlement - procedure to settle the participants’ obligations related to funds or securities transfers between two or more parties.

• For more information on these and other concepts, please consult the glossary.

Payment instruments processed by the clearing houses that operate at present in the Dominican Republic and settled in the BCRD:

Organizations that participate at present in the following Payments Systems: 

    Checks Clearinghouse and other credits documents. 

    ACH Operations Clearing  processed by Cardnet.  

    Automated Teller Machine (ATM) Operations Clearing  processed by Cardnet.    

    Point of Sale (POS) Operations Clearing processed by Cardnet.