SIA to supply new settlement system

18 April 2016

SIA to supply new settlement system

The Reserve Bank has signed a contract with SIA to implement and support a new real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) that will replace the current Exchange Settlement Account System (ESAS).

Deputy Governor Geoff Bascand said: “Our preferred approach was to find and use an existing off-the-shelf system rather than build a new bespoke system. The contract with SIA achieves that goal.”

SIA, a European provider of technology infrastructure and services for financial institutions, central banks, corporates and public administration bodies, will use its wholly-owned subsidiary Perago to deliver and support the new system. Perago is based in Pretoria, South Africa, and specialises in IT solutions for central banks.

“The Perago RTGS system has a rich list of features that we can consider for deployment. We sought a system with substantial processing capacity and the Perago solution will allow for significant volume growth and high throughput rates.”

The functionality of the existing ESAS system will largely be incorporated into the replacement, including auto-overnight reverse purchase of eligible securities, tiered interest, authorisation and liquidity management features, and key interfaces to the SWIFT messaging system. The Perago RTGS is deployed in a number of central banks in Scandinavia.

“After an initial planning phase, we expect to start settling on options and features in the second half of this year, with installation of the new RTGS to follow,” Mr Bascand said.

Along with implementation of the Perago RTGS system, the Reserve Bank will replace the underlying payment systems IT infrastructure, which is currently integrated with the corporate IT infrastructure. The new RTGS will operate on a standalone IT infrastructure that incorporates substantial redundancy and resiliency features.

“Our goal is to move to a modern platform that is well supported internationally and to avoid costly upgrades of existing software and hardware,” Mr Bascand said.

ends

© Scoop Media