Held, not rejected: a T2 payment queued for liquidity
Trigger: Bank Alfa's RTGS account does not hold enough available liquidity to cover a high-value payment when T2 checks it.
What operations sees first: A submitted high-value payment does not settle immediately; it sits in the T2 queue while the account waits for cover.
WHERE IS THE MONEY?
No money moved while queued — Bank Alfa's account was untouched until cover arrived.
DID SETTLEMENT HAPPEN?
Settlement was deferred until liquidity was available, then completed with finality.
WHO ACTS NEXT?
Bank Alfa (sending bank) Bank Alfa manages intraday liquidity with CLM transfers so high-value payments do not sit queued late in the day.
PLAY THE EXCEPTION
Trigger: Bank Alfa's RTGS account does not hold EUR 2,000,000.00 of available liquidity at the moment the payment is checked.
Bank Alfa submits the payment to T2
Bank Alfa (sending bank) → TARGET2 (T2) · pacs.009
Bank Alfa's payments desk sends a high-value interbank payment (a pacs.009) to TARGET2, which processes it the instant it arrives rather than batching it for a later cycle. Nothing has moved yet — it is an instruction.
Step 1 of 5: Bank Alfa submits the payment to T2
- 02ProcessingT2 checks Bank Alfa's available liquidityTARGET2 (T2)
- 04 · EXCEPTION PATHProcessingBank Alfa brings in liquidityBank Alfa (sending bank) → Central bank (Eurosystem)
- 05 · EXCEPTION PATHSettlementThe queued payment settlesBank Alfa (sending bank) → Nordbank (receiving bank)
- OUTCOME
- Funds
- No money has moved while the payment sits in the queue — Bank Alfa's account is untouched until cover arrives.
- Settlement
- Settlement is deferred until liquidity is available; the payment settles, with finality, only once its RTGS account can cover it.
- Who acts next
- Bank Alfa (sending bank) — Bank Alfa manages its intraday liquidity, using CLM transfers so high-value payments do not sit queued late in the day.
Full step-by-step text (works without JavaScript)
- 02ProcessingT2 checks Bank Alfa's available liquidityTARGET2 (T2)
TARGET2 checks whether Bank Alfa's RTGS account holds enough available liquidity — drawing on the Central Liquidity Management (CLM) component — to cover the full amount before it settles anything.
- 04 · EXCEPTION PATHProcessingBank Alfa brings in liquidityBank Alfa (sending bank) → Central bank (Eurosystem)
Incoming payments arrive, or Bank Alfa moves funds from its Central Liquidity Management (CLM) account onto its RTGS account, so the queued payment can be covered.
- 05 · EXCEPTION PATHSettlementThe queued payment settlesBank Alfa (sending bank) → Nordbank (receiving bank)
As soon as liquidity is available, T2 releases the queued payment from the queue and settles it across the two RTGS accounts in central-bank money, individually and finally.
- DR Bank Alfa's RTGS account at the central bank — EUR 2,000,000.00
- CR Nordbank's RTGS account at the central bank — EUR 2,000,000.00
- OUTCOME
- Funds
- No money has moved while the payment sits in the queue — Bank Alfa's account is untouched until cover arrives.
- Settlement
- Settlement is deferred until liquidity is available; the payment settles, with finality, only once its RTGS account can cover it.
- Who acts next
- Bank Alfa (sending bank) — Bank Alfa manages its intraday liquidity, using CLM transfers so high-value payments do not sit queued late in the day.
THE TIMELINE
- 01Bank Alfa (sending bank)Submits a EUR 2,000,000.00 payment to TARGET2 for real-time gross settlement.pacs.009
- 02TARGET2 (T2)Checks Bank Alfa's RTGS/CLM liquidity and finds it insufficient, so it queues the payment rather than rejecting it.
An RTGS system will not settle money that is not there — but it holds the instruction instead of failing it.
- 03Bank AlfaBrings in liquidity: incoming payments arrive, or it transfers funds from CLM onto its RTGS account.
- 04TARGET2 (T2)Releases the queued payment and settles it across the two RTGS accounts in central bank money, individually and finally.
Resolution: The payment is deferred, not lost. Once the RTGS account can cover it, T2 settles it with finality. Queuing is a liquidity-management outcome, not an error.
Sources for this scenario2
- Official requirement
TARGET Services ↗ — European Central Bank · queue management / CLM
T2 replaced TARGET2 in March 2023. Detailed user functional specifications are published separately in the ECB's professional-use documents section.
- Simplified educational illustration
Payments Signal editorial teaching models — Payments Signal
What this simplifies: Single-CSM/single-cycle model; institution-specific handling and exact scheme timings vary.
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.