A RITS settlement (Australia RTGS)
A high-value Australian dollar payment settles one-for-one across the banks' Exchange Settlement Accounts at the Reserve Bank of Australia, in real time and with finality.
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Bank Alfa submits the payment to RITS
Bank Alfa (paying bank) → RITS (Reserve Bank of Australia)
The paying bank sends its high-value obligation to RITS, which processes it the instant it arrives rather than batching it for a later netting cycle. Nothing has settled yet — this is an instruction.
Step 1 of 5: Bank Alfa submits the payment to RITS
- 02ProcessingRITS checks Bank Alfa's ESA balanceRITS (Reserve Bank of Australia)
- 03SettlementThe RBA settles the payment in real timeBank Alfa (paying bank) → Nordbank (receiving bank)
- 05PostingNordbank books the incoming fundsNordbank (receiving bank)
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- 02ProcessingRITS checks Bank Alfa's ESA balanceRITS (Reserve Bank of Australia)
RITS looks at whether Bank Alfa's Exchange Settlement Account (ESA) at the Reserve Bank holds enough funds to settle in full, one payment at a time, before any money moves.
- 03SettlementThe RBA settles the payment in real timeBank Alfa (paying bank) → Nordbank (receiving bank)
The Reserve Bank of Australia debits Bank Alfa's ESA and credits Nordbank's ESA, one payment at a time in central-bank money. There is no netting: settlement is real-time gross, final and irrevocable.
- DR Bank Alfa's Exchange Settlement Account at the RBA — AUD 1,500,000.00
- CR Nordbank's Exchange Settlement Account at the RBA — AUD 1,500,000.00
- 05PostingNordbank books the incoming fundsNordbank (receiving bank)
Because the interbank leg already settled with finality across the ESAs, Nordbank can book the incoming funds on its own ledger without waiting for anything else.
- CR Incoming settlement account at Nordbank — AUD 1,500,000.00
What this simplifies: One payment settling gross across Exchange Settlement Accounts. Real RITS operation depends on intraday liquidity management and queue handling across the whole day.
Sources for this flow2
- Official requirement
RITS, the New Payments Platform and the Fast Settlement Service ↗ — Reserve Bank of Australia
NPP payments settle individually and in real time via the FSS across ESAs at the RBA, unlike batch, deferred-net retail systems.
- Simplified educational illustration
Payments Signal editorial teaching models — Payments Signal
What this simplifies: Fictional banks and a single high-value payment; real RITS operation involves many participants, intraday liquidity and auto-offset mechanisms, and daily operating cut-offs not shown here.
Used wherever diagrams, scenarios, figures, or example values are didactic constructions rather than sourced facts; every such use carries a simplifications disclosure. All people, companies, banks, and list entries in examples are fictional.