Further complicating matters, a U.S. law prohibiting any foreign bank from clearing payment for Iranian crude will take effect on June 28.
In the section "An integrated financial network model", we present our model of the financial system and provide a preliminary analysis of net worth, price impact, and clearing payment vectors.
The Fed is, in effect, the Treasury's bank, accepting deposits and clearing payments on a daily basis.
That might be the case if all that central bankers did was, say, choose computer software for clearing payments.
Indian officials were quoted in Indian news media this month as saying that they were clearing payments for Iranian oil through the Bundesbank.
Ideally, he said, the government would also streamline the payment clearing process so that vendors on various agency Web sites could clear payments electronically through one source, instead of several.
But when the air transport association, a lobbying group that also clears payments between carriers on tickets not sold in the United States, pronounced a death sentence on paper tickets three years ago, the idea had doubters.
Indicative of the problems was the drama on Saturday at the main state bank that clears payments between businesses, an organization known as the Zavod za Obracun Placanja, or Zop.
It clears payments, supplies point-of-sale terminals to shops and etches personal data onto the cards it issues on behalf of its customers.Running a payments platform requires specialist skills, says Mr Edwards, so banks are content to outsource the job to a trusted third party.
