Payments and Market Infrastructure
The Global Risks Alliance (GRA)
What readiness means in payments and Market Infrastructure: the evidence, governance and documentation a programme needs before a competent institution can review it independently.
Fig.A programme from scoping to the owner's decision. Design, not a record.
Readiness in Payments and Market Infrastructure is the state in which a programme's evidence, governance and documentation let a competent institution review it independently, against frameworks such as Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures (PFMI) and Guidance on cyber resilience for financial market infrastructures. A readiness file is released only at the owner's written direction, and GRA does not approve, rate, underwrite, lend or invest.
How a failure at one financial centre can spread through settlement links. Design links, not real dependencies.
A readiness file describes a programme's evidence, risks and governance so that an institution can carry out its own review. GRA does not approve, rate, underwrite, lend or invest, and it recommends no counterparty.
| Principle group | Examples |
|---|---|
| Credit and liquidity risk | Collateral, margin, liquidity resources for the largest participant defaults |
| Settlement | Settlement finality, money settlement, delivery versus payment |
| Default management | Rules and procedures, segregation and portability |
| General business and operational risk | Business continuity, recovery of critical operations, cyber resilience |
| Access and transparency | Participation requirements, disclosure of rules and data |
CPMI-IOSCO cyber guidance asks FMIs to plan to resume critical operations within two hours of a disruption and to complete settlement by the end of the day, even in extreme but plausible scenarios. Readiness evidence documents site geography, power and network diversity against that objective. Topic depth at clearing and settlement.
A file is released only at the programme owner's written direction, to a party the owner chooses, with no fee tied to any transaction.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Readiness file | A document set describing a programme's evidence, risks, governance and data so that a competent institution can carry out its own independent review; it is not an approval, rating or offer of finance. |
| Due diligence | The independent investigation a lender or investor carries out before committing finance. |
| Environmental and social safeguards | Requirements lenders set so financed projects avoid, minimise and offset harm to people and the environment. |
| Settlement finality | The point at which a transfer becomes irrevocable and unconditional in law. |
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.