We develop a parsimonious model of the interbank payment system to study congestion and the role of liquidity markets in alleviating congestion. The model incorporates an endogenous instruction arrival process, scale-free topology of payments between banks, fixed total liquidity that limits...

We examine the diffusion of real-time gross settlement (RTGS) technology across all 174 central banks. RTGS reduces settlement risk and facilitates financial innovation in the settlement of foreign exchange trades. In 1985, only three central banks had implemented RTGS systems, and by year-end...

We explore the network topology of the interbank payments transferred between commercial banks over the Fedwire® Funds Service. We find that the network is compact despite low connectivity. The network includes a tightly connected core of money-center banks to which all other banks connect. The...