Clearing activities: its main aspects

According to the current legislation, clearing activity is a process to determine the obligations of the parties to each other and their mutual offset. Thus, only the difference between the amount of the debt of one counterparty and the amount of the debt of the other is liable to be paid.

Clearing activities can be carried out either as a specially organized division at the enterprise or by a third-party company engaged in the provision of these services. If we talk about clearing in the sphere of banking services, now the credit organization can act as different participants in the mutual offset, for example, be a direct counterparty, or perform the functions of a third-party company.

A key participant in transactions aimed at offsetting mutual claims, a credit institution is when making settlements with other banks. In modern market relations, interbank clearing has become of great importance, since it frees employees from doing unnecessary operations, which saves time and frees it for other more important cases. At the same time, documenting, timing of the operation and other conditions are established by agreement of the parties. If the clearing activity is carried out by banks as an additional service, then the relevant agreement of the legal entity with the credit institution will be considered as the basis. And the operation is carried out by studying and working out the documentation provided by the client.

Companies performing relevant services must have a license that gives the right to carry out an activity. Only after that they can help other legal entities in settlements with counterparties and partners, control the movement of funds on their accounts and offset mutual liabilities. Some banks consider it inappropriate to create a separate unit specializing in clearing. In this case, they can resort to the services of a third-party organization, in particular, to offer them to their clients.

In addition, clearing activity gives banks significant advantages. The fact is that if the companies place funds on a separate account that act as guarantors of the satisfaction of the claims of the parties, then the credit organization has the right to use them as credit resources if there is a proper permit. At the same time, one obligatory condition must be observed: the funds are refunded at the appointed time and in full. Any violation of this rule may cause imbalance in the conduct of further operations, which will negatively affect the reputation of the bank.

For a full-fledged operation to offset the claims of the parties in the bank, it is necessary to open a clearing account. And on it you can store funds in both national and foreign currency, depending on the terms of the agreement with the client. According to the current legislation, if the state authorities have recognized the company performing the clearing, unprofitable and mired in debt, then during the proceedings it is forbidden to stop settlements on the accounts of the company's customers. When a firm is declared bankrupt, all resources of legal entities-clients are subject to mandatory return in full.

At the international level, there is a currency clearing, that is, the agreement of two or more countries on offsetting mutual obligations to each other. In this case, there arises the problem of calculating and paying the final balance, since it becomes necessary to exchange the national currency unit for the currency of another country. Currency clearing is considered quite a convenient and common form of settlement between representatives of different countries. In this case, several of its types are distinguished: with conditional, free balance conversion or absolutely unconvertible. The latter implies that there is no possibility of calculating in foreign currency, so the procedure is usually carried out in a commodity form.