To produce this handbook for those who oversee, operate and use payment systems, editor Bruce J. Summers draws on his three decades of experience in payment systems at the Federal Reserve and as a consultant for the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and central banks and brings together authors with practical industry experience from around the world. Contributions Joaquin Bernal, Central Bank of Colombia ; Ron Berndsen, The Netherlands Bank ; Hemant Baijal, formerly The World Bank ; Wilko Bolt, The Netherlands Bank ; Sujit Chakravorti, The Clearing House ; Terry Goh, Monetary Authority of Singapore ; Philipp Haene and Robert Oleschak, Swiss National Bank ; Richard Heckinger, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago ; Daniel Heller, Swiss National Bank ; Esmond Lee, Hong Kong Monetary Authority ; Ricardo Medina-Alvarez, Bank of Mexico ; Harish Natarajan, The World Bank ; Knut Sandal, Norges Bank ; G. Srinivas, Reserve Bank of India ; Larry Sweet, Federal Reserve Bank of New York ; Harry Newman, SWIFT ; Carlo Tresoldi, SIA ; and John Trundle, Euroclear . The role of payment and settlement systems in mitigating financial risk and ensuring financial stability during the recent economic crisis followed by initiatives to increase their use in the OTC markets for credit default swaps have become headline news in the financial press. Further, the efficiency and safety of retail payment systems now command attention due to the prominence of the consumer sector in modern economies (for example, an estimated US$225 billion in non-cash retail payments are made each day in the United States alone). Public sector overseers have adopted a broad system-wide perspective that relies on official guidance as well as regulation to achieve public policy goals for safety, effectiveness, and efficiency. Their official guidance includes international standards for the design and operation of payment and settlement systems promulgated by the Bank for International Settlements. The timeliness of this book is underscored by the BIS announcing a comprehensive review of the international standards in February 2010.