A-P05 · NETWORK · sectorGRA dossier · service level R0
GRAPayments and Market InfrastructureIn development
Payments and Market Infrastructure · Financial discipline overview

Financial discipline overview

Payments and financial market infrastructure is the part of the financial system that moves money and securities between parties and records who owns what. This page describes the sector, how its risks are managed and why its operational resilience matters, as a matter of research and shared understanding. It describes how the sector works; it does not execute, advise on or test anything.

Open Financial-system transmission Back to Payments and Market Infrastructure
Publisher
The Global Risks Alliance
Field
Financial stability, Cyber and digital resilience, Digital public infrastructure
Status
In development
Service level
R0: information and enquiries

The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.

Layers 2

Activity and exposure, for this page

Latest available

NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth

Loading the latest NASA imagery.

Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.

For financial discipline overview, in GRA's spatial-finance reading, the map opens on night lights and population density with built-up and settlement extent from NASA GIBS, framed on the United Kingdom and Ireland; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.

Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · GDACS · CIESIN/Columbia, NASA SEDAC HBASESources and licences

  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). CC BY 4.0
  • VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), VIIRS 375 m active fire product, NASA LANCE; vector tiles via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
  • © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
  • Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
  • Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
  • Live: GDACS (EC JRC / UN OCHA) Events are indicative, not official warnings.
  • Context: CIESIN/Columbia, NASA SEDAC HBASE. Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University, and NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC): Global Human Built-up And Settlement Extent (HBASE) 2010; Seto, Guneralp and Hutyra 2012, Global Grid of Probabilities of Urban Expansion to 2030; Global Urban Heat Island (UHI) Data Set, 2013.
  • Optional layers (35 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.

Layers and dates

  • Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
  • Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static
  • Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026
  • Land surface temperature, day, 8-day composite: VIIRS NOAA-20 Level 3, 8-day, NASA LANCE · 14 Sep 2026
  • Active fires and thermal anomalies, last day: VIIRS NOAA-20 375 m (FIRMS), NASA LANCE FIRMS · 13 Oct 2026

STEM methods
6
Canonical methods this field applies
Topics
8
Subject pages in the field
Counterparts
5
Platforms in shared fields at GCRI, GRF and GRA
Report series
2
Nexus Reports series it contributes to
01In brief

The short answer.

The Payments and Market Infrastructure sector overview covers operational resilience of clearing, settlement, payment systems and financial market utilities. It sets out who is in scope, from payment-system researchers and FMI professionals, how risk reaches the sector and how it travels onward, analysed with critical function mapping as well as dependency and outage analysis. GRA builds shared industry understanding and does not advise, rate or assess individual firms.

02Canvas

One field, three institutions.

Canvas · one field, three institutionsDesign, not a record
One field, three institutions: Payments and Market Infrastructure and its counterpartsGCRI studies the field as science, GRF governs and convenes it, GRA builds shared financial understanding; the Nexus Universe tests work across them and the competent authorities decide. Design of the arrangement, not a record.

Fig.How GCRI, GRF and GRA share one field while the authorities decide. Design, not a record.

03Console

Field overview, in outline.

The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.

Field overview: the screen's structure, terms and states for Payments and market infrastructure.Placeholder names and illustrative values; a design, not a record or a live system.
04The sector

The infrastructures and who runs them.

Payments

Retail and large-value systems

Card schemes, automated clearing houses, instant payment systems and real-time gross settlement systems, operated by central banks and private operators.

Post-trade

Clearing and settlement

Central counterparties, central securities depositories and securities settlement systems that complete trades.

Support

Messaging and data

Financial messaging networks, trade repositories and the technology providers on which all of them rely.

05Sector map

The parts of the system Payments and Market Infrastructure examines.

Payments and Market Infrastructure frames are set by CPMI-IOSCO, FSB and CPMI and Central banks.

PartChannel Payments and Market Infrastructure studies
Payment systemsSettlement
CCPsClearing
CSDsSecurities
ProvidersMessaging and cloud

Shocks travel between these parts, and Payments and Market Infrastructure studies the links: What fails with a node? The evidence base is PFMI disclosures, site geography, statistics.

06Risk management

Established principles, evolving practice.

Financial market infrastructures manage credit, liquidity, legal, custody, general business and operational risks. Internationally recognized principles for financial market infrastructures, issued by global standard-setting bodies, set expectations for each, and central banks and supervisors oversee infrastructures against them. Settlement finality, the legal point at which a transfer becomes irrevocable, is central to limiting contagion.

Operational risk has become a leading concern. Infrastructures are expected to recover critical operations quickly after disruption, including from cyber attacks that may corrupt data. Meeting such expectations is hard when an attack could spread to backup systems, and when many infrastructures depend on the same providers.

07Where shared understanding helps

Questions no single firm can answer alone.

  1. 01

    Interdependence

    How infrastructures, participants and providers depend on each other. See third-party concentration.

  2. 02

    Failure modes

    How outages and cyber incidents unfold across the system. See payment cyber security.

  3. 03

    Fallbacks

    Which alternatives keep money moving in a disruption. See cash and digital resilience.

  4. 04

    Testing

    How resilience can be tested credibly. See operational test methods.

08Research, not execution

The limits of the platform's role.

The Global Risks Alliance (GRA) is a nonprofit business league for the financial services industry. It does not lend, underwrite, rate, invest, advise on or arrange transactions, introduce counterparties or take transaction-based pay, and readiness work is not approval. GRA does not operate, connect to or test any live payment system, and it assesses no individual institution. How stress moves through and beyond these infrastructures is described at financial-system transmission.

09Key terms

Terms used on this page.

Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.

TermDefinition
Transmission channelThe route by which a shock reaches financial institutions' balance sheets.
Financial market infrastructureA system that clears, settles or records payments, securities or derivatives among participants.
Settlement finalityThe point at which a transfer becomes irrevocable and unconditional in law.
Systemic riskThe risk of disruption to financial services caused by impairment of all or parts of the financial system, with serious consequences for the real economy, as the IMF, FSB and BIS define it.
10Sources

Where this page's references lead.

The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.

11Pages

Pages in Financial discipline overview.

Page

Financial-system transmission

12Questions

Questions and answers.

Does GRA advise payment system operators?
No. GRA is a nonprofit business league for the financial services industry. It does not lend, underwrite, rate, invest, advise on or arrange transactions, introduce counterparties or take transaction-based pay, and readiness work is not approval.
Which methods does the platform rely on?
Among others, payment and financial market technology, network science and contagion and reliability and resilience engineering, listed on the STEM foundation page.
Is this the same as financial stability analysis?
It is part of it. Wider financial stability questions are studied at Financial Stability at GRA.
Related

Around Payments and Market Infrastructure.

Payments and Market Infrastructure

Bring your expertise to this field.

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.

Write to the team See all contact routes
Skip to toolbar