Center-Invest Bank has received the prestigious banking award “STP Award 2010” for the excellent quality of its international payments denominated in US dollars. The award is given at the end of each year to recognise excellence in processing payments in foreign currencies.
Straight Through Processing (STP) means observance of the standards for formatting payments that allows them to be processed through an automated system without manual intervention. Automated payment processing results in faster settlements and also helps minimise the costs of international clearing for bank customers.
The award was presented to Center-Invest Bank by Bkharat Sarpeshkar, head of global transaction business at Citi, and Srinivasan Sridkhar, head of Citi’s transaction business in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“It is a great honour for Citi to present this award to Center-Invest Bank”, Srinivasan Sridkhar said. “The STP Award is a mark of professionalism, indicating that a bank complies with high standards in international settlements. We thank Center-Invest Bank for being our partner and wish it continuing success.”
In 2010, through the Citi banking group, Center-Invest Bank made approximately 2,500 USD payments to many different countries. Our straight through processing rate was 97%, one of the best results in Russia.
“Center-Invest works to the highest international standards in the provision of banking services and we are very pleased that the efforts of our staff have been recognised by CITI, one of the global leaders in international settlements,” said Grigory Chorayan, head of Center-Invest Bank’s Treasury and Financial Markets Department. “The transaction business facilitates cooperation between our banks with respect to trade finance and trading on the financial markets.”
Center-Invest has access to an extensive and well-developed network of correspondent accounts with leading international banks, guaranteeing our customers reliable, secure and rapid settlements, including international settlements. In 2010, transactions through correspondent accounts totalled USD26bn and EUR1bn.
We are a member of the international association SWIFT, which ensures rapid clearing of payments and the safe and reliable communication of financial messages to correspondent banks for settlements in any currency.
Center-Invest Bank is a participant in the EBRD and IFC trade facilitation programmes (TFP). By using structured trade finance mechanisms, we are able to minimize the risks and the potential losses for our customers who are engaged in foreign trade. In 2010, our trade finance partners included banks from Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, South Korea, China, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Belarus.