Banque du Liban (BDL) has just accomplished the first phase of an overhaul of the country’s payments system. In July 2012, it went live with Lebanon’s first real time gross settlement (RTGS) system, widely considered to be the safest form of inter-bank payments because transactions are pre-funded and irrevocable, rather than netted.
It also plans to launch an automated clearing and settlement system for low-value and bulk payments (BDL-Clear) and a payment system for government payments (BDL-PayGov). These three components will make up the country's new national payments system (NPS), which meets international best practise standards. Both the clearing and government payments schemes are scheduled to go live later in the year and are currently in the implementation phase.
