OREANDA-NEWS. November 21, 2007. The new payment system TARGET2 of the Eurosystem, which consists of the European Central Bank and national central banks of the European Union Member States that have adopted the euro, was launched today, and the first group of countries connected to the system. This group consists of central banks of Austria, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia and Germany and TARGET2 users of these states.

The system TARGET2 is the Eurosystem’s integrated market solution for settlement in real time of predominantly high-value euro payments via the accounts managed in central banks. The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) is responsible for the system TARGET2 managed by the Eurosystem. The technical infrastructure, the single shared platform of TARGET2, is operated on behalf of the Eurosystem by three central banks: Deutsche Bundesbank, Banque de France and Banca d’Italia.

According to the ECB press release, the system TARGET2 was launched successfully.

The services of this system shall be provided in Lithuania via TARGET2 component system TARGET2-LIETUVOS BANKAS, which will establish conditions, together with the system LITAS-PHA developed by the Bank of Lithuania and also successfully launched today, for the financial institutions of the country to expand settlement services in euro.

Mr. Vaidievutis Geralavicius, Member of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania, states that the connection of Lithuania to the system TARGET2 shows that we are making a real step to the euro area. Participation in TARGET2 will allow both the Bank of Lithuania, and commercial banks to better prepare for the euro adoption in our country. In addition, the connection of Lithuania to TARGET2 will allow commercial banks operating in our country to cheapen the services of payments in euro. The fees of the system TARGET2 are favourable for that.