Until recently only aggregate data were available on national payment turnover. In reality, however, there are substantial differences across individual settlements (or between the various districts of Budapest). As a result, there is hardly any settlement which would be more or less on a par...

This paper develops and simulates a model of the emergence of networks in an interbank, RTGS payment system. A number of banks, faced with random streams of payment orders, choose whether to link directly to the payment system, or to use a correspondent bank. Settling payments directly on the...