Exposure limit monitors

Exposure limit monitors are configured at the transmission level, the batch (ICL) level, or the transaction level.

Defining exposure limit monitors

Monitors can be configured either for specific participants or as global monitors, which apply to all participants. Additionally, the activity of a subparticipant is monitored by its own monitors and the monitors of its parent participant. For example, participant B is configured as a subparticipant of participant A. Any transactions that are originated by participant B are monitored by the applicable monitors that are defined for participant A, the applicable monitors that are defined for participant B, and any global monitors that are defined.

To define exposure limit monitors, use the following pages of the user interface.
  • For an originator, use the exposure limit monitors link on the participant details page to configure its monitors.
  • For global monitors, use the global limit monitors page to configure the monitors.
When a monitor is defined, the following data can be specified:
  • A debit limit, a credit limit, or both.
  • The number of days to monitor.
  • The effective dates for the monitor.
  • The error code to use if the monitor is exceeded.
  • The type of the monitor.
For the different levels, the monitors are defined by the following information:
Transmission level
Inbound message standard.
Batch (ICL) level
Message standard, message type, account number, or inbound product.
Transaction level
Account, outbound message standard, outbound message type, and inbound product.

Overview of exposure limit monitoring

This overview describes batch (ICL) exposure limit monitoring. The transmission and transaction monitoring work similar to the batch (ICL) monitoring.

When a transmission is received, the message type is determined from the type of the transmission. A monitor can be defined to track only batches (ICLs) for a specific message type or to track all message types. As batches (ICLs) are processed by Gateway, each batch (ICL) can be assigned to an inbound product. A monitor can be defined to track the batches (ICLs) that are assigned to a particular inbound product.

When Risk Management receives a message that indicates a batch (ICL) is ready to be processed, it searches all of the monitors that are defined for the participant and all of the global monitors that are configured. Only the limits for monitors that match the attributes of the transaction, such as the outbound message standard or outbound message type, and fall within the effective dates that are defined by the monitor are checked.

If a limit for one of the monitors is exceeded, the error code that is defined by that monitor is used to determine the action to be taken. If the limits for multiple monitors are exceeded, each failure is recorded, and each error is assigned to the failing transaction. If a failing monitor limit does not have an error code that is defined, the monitor error code property for the limit that was exceeded is used. If no default error code property was defined, a system warning alert is generated.

The most severe error is used to determine the state of the transaction. For example, the following error codes are received for a transaction.
  • Reject transaction and not overridable.
  • Reject transaction but overridable.
In this case, the state of the transaction is set to rejected and not overridable.

If the monitor limit is set to -1 and the number of days for the monitor period is not zero, the transactions that match the attributes of the monitor are tracked. But, no error is set when the monitor is exceeded.

When the number of days to monitor is greater than one, the totals for the multiple monitor days are added together to determine whether the monitor limits are exceeded. The monitor definition determines whether the totals are monitored by business days, which exclude the weekends and holidays, or by consecutive days, which include the weekends and holidays. If the monitor is configured to monitor by business days, the business days immediately preceding the current business day are used when multiple day monitors are checked. If the monitor is configured to monitor by the current day, the consecutive days that immediately precede the current day are used when multiple day monitors are checked.

Example of a multiple day monitor

As an example, consider a monitor that was defined with a credit monitor period of three days and a credit limit of $250,000. The following table shows example credit totals for several monitor days.
Table 1. Credit totals for multiple monitor days
Monitor day Credit total for the day
19 March $100,000
20 March $80,000
21 March $50,000
If the current monitor day is 21 March, only $20,000 more can be processed for the day. The reason is because $50,000 was already processed for 21 March, which makes the cumulative credit total $230,000 for the three days that are being monitored.

Using the values from Table 1, an extra $120,000 of credit amount is available to be processed at the beginning of the 22 March monitor day. Since the monitor is a three-day monitor, the total for 19 March is not included in the credit total it is tracking. Only the totals for 20 March, 21 March, and 22 March are tracked by the monitor.