meta_id 3243827

On June 16, 2026, Bits AS, Norway's interbank standards body, issued Circular 2026 No. 8 implementing enhanced amount controls in the Norwegian Interbank Clearing System (NICS) for transactions containing customer identification numbers (KID) in payment subspecifications. The strengthened controls address quality and robustness concerns in the payment value chain following incident events in summer and autumn 2025. During these incidents, a sending bank transmitted payments with missing or incomplete subspecifications to NICS via its bank data centre, creating significant reconciliation problems for payment recipients. While NICS correctly rejected multi-subspecification payment orders with amount discrepancies under existing rules, single subspecification (KID) payment orders with discrepancies were not rejected. This inconsistency resulted in substantial additional work for receiving banks and end customers, including manual reconciliation and retrieval of missing payment information. Previously, NICS did not control the relationship between transmitted amounts and payment specifications except where multiple structured subspecifications containing KID were present. The new requirement extends amount controls to all transactions containing KID in subspecifications, regardless of the number of subspecifications. This change modifies only NICS reception controls; banks' data centres require no system changes and interbank file submission procedures remain unchanged. However, Bits emphasises that banks must independently implement equivalent amount controls for all payment orders received and transmitted through the interbank process via NICS. The updated NIBE message handbook documentation (Part 1, Chapter 2.3.9.1) reflects this change. Implementation in NICS production is scheduled for the third quarter of 2026. MPSI will notify banks of testing availability in the customer test environment prior to production implementation. Queries should be directed to Morten Krøgenes at morten.krogenes@bits.no or Kristin Ringstad at kristin.ringstad@mastercard.com.