The STET-CORE system is a French interbank automated clearing house that has been designated as a Systemically Important Payment System at the European level. STET, the name of the operating company, refers to Systèmes Technologiques d'Echange et de Traitement, and CORE, the name of the infrastructure itself, refers to COmpensation REtail (French: compensation being French for clearing).
STET was established in December 2004 by France's six main banks, namely BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel, Groupe Caisse d'Épargne, Groupe Banque Populaire, and Société Générale, to replace a previous system known as the (SIT). The initiative was intended as a French banking industry response to the creation of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).[1] .
CORE clears payments from retail instruments such as wire transfers, promissory notes, direct debits, documentary collections, checks, or card payments, and allows for the exchange of SEPA Credit Transfers (SCTs) in France and across the EU.[2] CORE started operations in January 2008 and eventually replaced the SIT in mid-2008.
In March 2013, the Centre for Exchange and CLearing (CEC), which operated as interbank clearing house in Belgium, in turn completed its migration to the STET platform.[3] The Belgian and French clearing services members are still treated differentially, however.[4] STET provided settlement via TARGET2. CORE is the largest European retail payment system by volume and value.[2]
In December 2015, STET merged with SER2S, the manager of real-time payment instructions for the French CB payment cards consortium, and converted itself into a French joint-stock company, STET SA.[5]
CORE migrated its SEPA Direct Debits (SDDs) on to the pan-European platform SEPA.EU, and its SCTs in 2018.[6] SEPA.EU allows for instant payments, activated on,[7] as well as the management of APIs in line with the second Payment Services Directive.[8] Its competitors in Europe include EBA Clearing, equensWorldline, and .[5]