Have you ever wondered how the banking system works? How do ATMs and payment terminals find out how much money is there? How do they know what, where and how it was filmed? Bank processing centers (BPCs) are involved in all of this, because they are the ones who own all the information. What are these structural divisions of banks? What functions do they perform? How do they work? Who provides these services? Is there a risk zone? Where are the large units of this type concentrated?
Why are banking processing centers needed?
First of all, let's deal with this issue. When they talk about banking processing centers, they mean special computing capacities authorized by certain payment systems, which have access to a database of participants (people) and personal computers (ATMs) that can use its capabilities. They provide authorization requests as well as transactions.
Banking processing centers record information about who made payments, where, who requested cash withdrawals from ATMs and many other actions (such as processing information about account limits and sending authorization requests when the issuing bank does not have its own base for these purposes ) As you can see, there are many functions. But not all of them are "equal." Large institutions often have major processing centers that deal with the management activities of other, smaller units.
How does the center work?
The operating mode can be of two types:
- Direct work with the processing center of "your" bank. In this case, it is understood that a person with his plastic card goes to the ATM of his institution. When he enters identifying information, it is transmitted directly to the issuer. Somewhere on the remote server, the processing of plastic cards takes place, and the information that he requested is returned to the person. Let's say how much money he has. If you request a large amount, the ATM will look at the data received and say that there is not so much cash. When you request a balance, the device will count and provide data. At the same time, the ATM will send information to the processing center that it has given a certain amount to such a person. Of course, there are overlays, but usually the circuit works flawlessly.
- Interaction through an intermediary. In this case, the processing center sends a request to the bank that issued the card. If everything is fine, the answer goes back that the payment can be made. There are also databases of operations, this facilitates the mutual settlements between different banks.
Banking Outsourcing
When a bank has its own BOC, this is one thing. Features in this case, we examined a little higher. Now we will pay attention to the transfer of all operations to another organization (also called outsourcing of banking services). This is usually done by small institutions that have relatively little activity. The BPC (or simply the PC) can be called whatever you like, starting from Banking Processing Center OJSC and up to “Calculating by One or Two”. Important in this case is the speed of fulfillment of the duties assigned to him, as well as the security of the processed data.
Additional functions
Additional obligations may be assigned to the unit: issuing new cards for enterprises with subsequent personalization is not uncommon. The processing center is the technical core of the payment system. It operates in very harsh conditions. This is not surprising, because the center is guaranteed to process in real time a large flow of transactions. Therefore, the computing power of the processing center also has a number of stringent requirements. He must prepare and present data for mutual settlements, process transaction protocols - and this is literally in a few hours.
What is necessary for the processing center?
Conventionally, two points can be distinguished:
- Computing power of a substantial size. We have already considered this above.
- Developed communication infrastructure. The BOC must simultaneously work with a large number of geographical points that are located at a considerable distance. It is clear that high-performance data transmission networks are required for efficient operation. Their importance is so great that they are even referred to as internal elements of payment systems, without which they cannot exist.
To perform the necessary tasks that are provided for by the bank, communication centers are used. They provide subjects of payment systems with access to networks through which data is transferred. On their own shoulders lies the concern that no one could gain access to them for illegal purposes. Their work on providing high-speed communication lines allows supporting a banking processing center.
Terminals (ATMs) receive information quickly. By modern standards, the delays are small: they can be a matter of seconds. This is not surprising, because the features of the ATM with the client are also strictly regulated. The terminal cannot process the request for more than 30 seconds. But this, as already written, is a slightly outdated concept.
Geographic location
In the Republic of Belarus, a network of banks and large enterprises created OJSC "Banking Processing Center". Minsk is the city in which the head office is located. So, the data in the capital will be processed in a few seconds. It all depends on geographic distance. It also has branches of the Banking Processing Center OJSC. Grodno is the city in which one of them is located. Therefore, here, various requests will be processed quite quickly.
It is expanding and concluding new agreements with various large banks of the Banking Processing Center OJSC. Gomel (city) has already opened the doors of a new branch. Here you can make cashless payments with Belkart system cards.
As it became clear, in many cities it opens branches of the Banking Processing Center OJSC. Brest was no exception. HRC you will find in this city at the address: Brest, st. Molodogvardeiskaya, 3, bldg. 3.
Always notifies about various technical works, preventive maintenance, because of which the terminals do not work, "Banking Processing Center". Mogilev, half of the population of which are customers of the HRC, disconnected the terminals on May 21 until 7 a.m.
Licenses
To make sure that the processing center can qualitatively perform all the functions assigned to it, it is necessary to go through certain procedures that govern most of the nuances. Legislatively, they were established in most countries, as a rule, over the past 15 years. Issue licenses to all organizations PSP / IPSP. Their cost, as well as the opportunities that are provided by different states, vary in each individual country. But, to summarize, it can be said that licenses allow certain companies, provided that they have agreements with banks that work with VISA and MasterCard, to initiate the process of debiting money from one account, so that they can later be credited to another.
Additional documentation
In addition to the above licenses, there is also regulatory documentation for companies that can determine general rules for interaction in the global card payment market. This primarily applies to the previously mentioned organizations VISA and MasterCard. An example is the documentation of the first Card Acceptance and Chargeback Management Guidelines. By the way, with the development of the electronic payment market, there has been a tendency that large processing systems acted as the basis for creating your own. But still, the vast majority of companies of this type work exclusively with one area. This is both their strengths and weaknesses: they do not own their money.
What types of systems do BPCs use?
They can be conditionally divided into the following types:
- Whites are focused on interacting with companies that pay all taxes in their jurisdictions. They are those that have low risk of problems. But, alas, their activities are significantly complicated by high taxes, which creates some problems for them when competing with representatives of the following two points.
- To gray include HR, which were registered in offshore or low tax jurisdiction. As a rule, companies of this kind are not very different from whites. But they can receive more income by paying a smaller amount, and are also ready to work with almost any business: pharmaceuticals, adult sites, trading on the verge of legality - it's all about them. The only peculiarity is their unwillingness to work with clients "who came from the street." Therefore, you have to connect personal contacts, reputation, and sometimes look for a guarantor.
- Black makes any payments. Even those that are openly illegal. For technical reasons, this is impossible without a bank that opened an account, so they work in conjunction. An example is odious offshore companies or Chinese banks. Due to the huge turnovers, as well as significant risks, such structures are very complicated, and it is very difficult to find the conditional owner of this money (but that does not mean that it is impossible). In addition to the difficulty of establishing communication, there is also a very big risk that it can close at any time, and then the whole amount that was hanging on it will disappear.
About the Russian banking sector
Most financial institutions that issue their own plastic cards also have separate PCs. In this case, they act as a structural unit of banks, due to which the settlement between the participants of the system. They provide internal processing operations. The BOC, which operate on the territory of the Russian Federation, is also required to have a FSB license that monitors information encryption.
Conclusion
As you can see, banking processing centers are an important component of the
structure of the bank. In addition to performing its basic functions, they are also entrusted with a number of additional tasks. They track the status of ATMs. And if the technician sends a signal that the terminal, for example, is being hacked, the data is processed and transmitted to the security service.