Our Company
Our history
The ICS operating since 18th November 1994, ensures that transfers and direct debits initiated by individuals and companies to other banks shall be delivered to their beneficiaries in a timely, secure and reliable manner. ICS is a centralised financial infrastructure service used directly or indirectly by all Hungarian payment service providers and banks to ensure that their customers' transfers are executed quickly and cheap. GIRO Zrt., as the operator of ICS, is responsible for ensuring that ICS operates in a reliable, secure, cost-effective in compliance with the provisions of laws.
The GIRO Zrt.’s GIRODirect service enables customers with a higher turnover to submit their group transfer and direct debit orders directly to GIRO Zrt., with the consent of their bank, to the ICS system. The largest customer of the GIRODirect service is the Hungarian State Treasury. State and local government organizations holding accounts at the State Treasury submit their transfer orders directly to GIRO Zrt. Clients using the GIRODirect service may make their transfers in a simple, secure and cost-efficient manner.
The GIRO Zrt.’s GIRinfO service provides a single-stage, uniform electronic access to various electronic databases for eligible companies. The Personal Data and Address Register managed by the Central Office for Administrative and Electronic Public Services and the Road Transport Register are also accessible through the GIRinfO service. The use of these databases significantly facilitates crediting activities for the financial institutions sector and the sale of mobile phones on instalment plans for the telecommunications sector.
Since its foundation, GIRO Zrt. has executed billions of inter-bank transfers. GIRO Zrt. aims to become a company that is competitive by European standards, efficient, innovative, diversified, secure, and serving the public. GIRO Zrt. is committed to the improvement of the Hungarian financial infrastructure. GIRO Zrt. defines its development objectives in consultation with the banking system, the State Treasury and the National Bank of Hungary.
GIRO Zrt. is a member of the European Association of Clearing Houses (EACHA).
Our subsidiary: BISZ ZRT.
Quality Assurance Policy
The primary objective of the quality assurance policy of GIRO Zrt. as a national clearing house is to strengthen the transparency of the Hungarian payment and, in a broader sense, the national economy by providing services to individuals, business entities and institutes through financial institutions, in line with the strategy of the National Bank of Hungary, as a participant in the Hungarian clearing system and linked to the Hungarian payment systems.
In line with this guiding principle, the national clearing house is constantly developing its systems for providing Hungarian clearing in accordance with the regulations of the National Bank of Hungary, whose primary objectives are as follows:
- constantly improving the satisfaction of the end-users (individuals, enterprises and institutes) as customers,
- increasing the proportion of bank transfers,
- in the course of processing transactions, ensuring even higher level of confidentiality and integrity, meeting the challenges constantly changing by the evolving IT,
- in compliance with the Hungarian clearing systems, providing the highest uptime possible,
- development of services in accordance with the demands of the NBH and the Hungarian clearing,
- as a participant to the Hungarian financial system to improve the competitiveness of the Hungarian financial system, and in a broader sense the national economy, when determining the fees for its services, in relation to other payment methods, thus broadening and constantly expanding the range of users of its services, contributing to improving the competitiveness of the national economy.
A regularly supervised, consequent client- and task-based framework of requirements is in place, enabling the GIRO Zrt. to
- constantly form and improve itself and its organization, the efficient professional co-operation of its colleagues,
- to regularly improve the professional expertize of its employees by attending courses, professional conferences, to disseminate the expertize within the framework of presentations and other fora, thus assisting the promotion of its services,
- in its business management, by the use of modern company controlling technologies, implement constantly improving efficiency, cost-saving and reasonable profitability providing the resources necessary for the improvement of services,
- improve and implement its services as per the bank community’s requirements, the norms based on international trends, taking the European Union’s requirements and recommendations into consideration by co-operating with the experts of its partners using the services,
- use tools and methods meeting the professional requirements of international reputation to expand, modernize its services,
- to effectively implement the management of life-cycle of its applications used to provide services in a documented manner,
- make the constant accessibility of its services secure and reliable, based on the principles of confidentiality, integrity and availability, with appropriate procedures, systems and policies in place to minimise potential risks,
- use its internal controlling system based on risk matrix on each process of the Company.
25th September 2020 dr. Zsolt Selmeczi-Kovács
ISO 9001 Certification
ISO 9001 Tanúsítvány
Valid from: 2023-04-28SEPA connections
The euro credit transaction (SCT) service is available since 2008, the euro direct debit (SDD) since 2010. To use these services, you merely need a bank account. In the Eurozone area the above payment methods have been made compulsory – with minor exceptions – since 1st February 2014. Countries outside the Eurozone have to use these schemes since 31st October 2016. Hungary is part of the SEPA zone, although not part of the Eurozone. Hungarian banks are joining gradually the credit transfer and direct debit schemes. The names of the banks offering these SEPA payments services are listed on this link: HTTP://EPC.CBNET.INFO/CONTENT/ADHERENCE_DATABASE
SEPA payments are cleared by Automated Clearing Houses, which are SEPA compliant infrastructures. These Automated Clearing Houses are listed on this website: HTTP://WWW.EUROPEANPAYMENTSCOUNCIL.EU/CONTENT.CFM?PAGE=SCT_SCHEME-COMPLIANT_CSMS
The introduction of the SEPA payment method in Hungary was coordinated by the Hungarian SEPA Organisation. With time, this task has been overtaken by the Hungarian Banking Association. There is useful information about this implementation process on this website:
HTTP://WWW.SEPAHUNGARY.HU
GIRO – for the time being – is not supporting the clearing of these SEPA payments, however it actively takes part in the preparation of joining these SEPA schemes. GIRO is a member of the EACHA (European Automated Clearing House Association). This Association created a standardised framework which makes the clearing process entirely interoperable among its participants, thus making frictionless credit transfer and direct debit transaction exchange possible. You will find further information about this topic on this homepage: HTTP://WWW.EACHA.ORG
The National Bank of Hungary and the Hungarian Banks have a common goal to continuously develop Hungarian domestic Forint transactions based on SEPA standards. Therefore, GIRO has implemented the Hungarian instant payment scheme on the principles of the SEPA instant payments scheme and UNIFI standards.