National Bank hosted Steven Palstermans, the SWIFT CIS Regional Manager, and Ivan Kovalenko, Director General of the SWIFT contractor company. The meeting with the National Bank management and the representatives of commercial banks covered the issues of establishing clearing settlements system and the use of SWIFT’s new services in it. The SWIFT representatives met with Vice-president Giorgi Glonti, where they stressed the importance of the new SWIFT products for the Georgian banking system. If the project is implemented in Georgia, the settlements in lari will become much simpler, cheaper and faster. Steven Palstermans presented the new SWIFT Net services – InterAct and FileAct. The former allows for incorporating in the payment information transfer and clearing system, and the latter – for interaction in real time. Steven Palstermans accentuated the advantage of the new instruments as compared with the existing ones. He discussed the system’s efficiency, fast speed, high reliability, flexibility and accessibility. The task for the stage 2 of the project - the creation of the service bureau (SWIFT integration local system) at the Bank was also discussed at the meeting. The bureau will help make the connection with SWIFT cheaper and simpler. According to Ivan Kovalenko, the National Bank of Georgia is traditionally deemed to be a well-developed central bank among the CB’s of the CIS countries. Therefore, it will not have difficulty adapting to the new system. Since1997, the Georgian banking sector has been incorporated into the SWIFT, which enabled 14 commercial banks to make international settlements through the Bank’s central server. Since 2004, the National Bank has been using the SWIFT Net service network, being able to use new services, including the clearing system, one of the cheapest and most convenient instruments of financial settlement. The SWIFT was established in 1973 in Brussels (Belgium). It encompasses 7800 financial institutions of 200 countries and involves a wide range of banks, brokers, dealers, clearing organizations and exchanges. The National Bank was incorporated in 1996. Currently, 19 commercial banks are using the SWIFT service, making transfers in an individual regime.