The TARGET System

• TARGET offers central liquidity management, steering and monitoring, with liquidity being clearly allocated for the specific needs of each supported TARGET service (T2, T2S, TIPS) through a real time interface.
• It provides the highest possible level of reliability and resilience as well as advanced business continuity mechanisms and cybersecurity by using state-of-the-art IT tools.
• It offers harmonised procedures for the settlement operations of ancillary systems, i.e. clearing and securities settlement systems.
• TARGET supplies harmonised services by using a single interface. 
• With TARGET, the Eurosystem offers a single price structure applicable to both intra-national and cross-border payments, and achieves a high level of cost recovery. Furthermore, it offers a broad range of services to meet the requirements of all users, including the European banking sector, national central banks and the European Central Bank.
• It provides access to historical and warehoused data and allows generation of ad-hoc reports for the needs of the decision making process.
• TARGET complies with the ISO 20022 standard for message submission, allowing participating entities to use the network service provider of their choice.

The first TARGET system was launched in 1999 and comprised the national real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems of EU Member States participating in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the ECB payment mechanism and an interlinking mechanism. Payment systems of EU countries that had not adopted the euro had the opportunity to connect to TARGET. In this context, Greece participated in TARGET since its launch via the HERMES payment system.

On 19/11/2007, according to Guideline ECB/2007/2 on the Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement Express Transfer system (TARGET2), TARGET was replaced by the TARGET2 system. TARGET2 also comprised the national real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems of EU Member States. TARGET2-GR was the Greek component of TARGET2 that Bank of Greece was managing.

On 6/12/2017, the Governing Council approved the T2-T2S Consolidation Project, the objective of which was to consolidate and optimise TARGET2 and TARGET2-Securities (T2S) systems, benefiting from state-of-the-art approaches and technological innovation, enabling a decrease in their combined operational cost and enhancing liquidity management across the various services (T2, T2S, TIPS). The result of the T2-T2S Consolidation Project is the new-generation Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement Express Transfer system settling in euro in central bank money (TARGET) that was launched on 21/11/2022, replacing TARGET2 according to Guideline ECB/2022/8. TARGET also comprised the national real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems of EU Member States, with TARGET-GR being the Greek component of TARGET managed by Bank of Greece.

TARGET incorporates the following components:

• Eurosystem Single Market Infrastructure Gateway (ESMIG) - ESMIG is a single service providing network connectivity and a messaging interface to the different market infrastructures (T2, T2S, TIPS, ECMS) of the Eurosystem. It reduces operational complexity for both market participants and Eurosystem, centralizes different networks, harmonizes protocols, graphical interfaces and certificates management. Participants to different market infrastructures access their respective systems through a common platform which is aggregating - and thus masking - all their diversities
• Central Liquidity Management (CLM) – CLM offers centralised mechanism for steering, monitoring and management of liquidity and allows efficient provisioning of liquidity for he different supported services (T2, T2S, TIPS)
• Common Reference Data Management (CRDM) – CRDM offers features that allow authorised users to set up, maintain and query all reference data that TARGET services share for their processing activities. CRDM ensures the consistency and integrity of all reference data but also the propagation and managing of relationships across services/components. Furthermore, it avoids duplication of reference data or redundant implementation of the same functions in multiple services/components.
• Billing – A centralised application that selects and packages billing information, generates consumption and invoice data, sends invoices and instructs direct debits for all services (T2, TIPS, T2S).
• Business Day Management (BDM) – BDM offers the schedule and calendar for all components and currencies. A schedule defines the structure of the business day in the TARGET Service as well as the events per currency for which RTGS Actors may configure event-based standing orders and regular reports. The calendar defines the days when the T2 Service or a common component is opened or closed. In case it is open, it follows the defined business day schedule. Each TARGET service may have a different calendar per currency.
• Data Warehouse (DWH) – DWH collects business information and data derived from services and common components in order to provide reporting at different aggregation levels and support business decision making
• Legal Archiving – It collects all information that is subject to legal archiving requirements. The data to be archived encompasses inbound and outbound messages of legal relevance (e.g. all payment orders).
• Contingency Settlement (ECONS II) - The contingency component that aims at addressing the situation where the T2 service, i.e. the CLM and/or the RTGS component, is not usable.
• Operational Tools – they are provided to the CB’s operational staff only. Those tools have interfaces to all applications. They support the monitoring and controlling of RTGS.