Strate, the central securities depository and electronic settlement system, is to move from the SA Reserve Bank's mainframe to a dedicated mainframe service provided by PQ Africa company Outsource.
Strate has since its inception in 1999 been sharing the Reserve Bank's mainframe facilities with the central bank's real-time gross settlement system, Samos.
The depository's Safires system will migrate on 23 July to a dedicated mainframe serve operated by Outsource and housed in a purpose-built facility at Exchange Square in Sandton.
The mainframe, an IBM 9672-RA6 processor, will handle more than 105 000 messages a day by the end of the year, when all JSE-listed securities will have been moved to Strate, says Ken Jerrard, Strate's head of IT facilities.
He expects the number of messages to increase after that, since markets that have moved from manual to electronic settlement have invariably experienced a major increase in volumes because of the reduced risk and enhanced efficiency in the settlement process.
Outsource account manager Peter Berthold says PQ Africa and Outsource have been instrumental in the establishment and operation of the Strate infrastructure at the Reserve Bank since 1999.
Strate has used the services of the Reserve Bank's network, SARB-Link, with the intention of migrating to the SwiftNet network in the second quarter of 2002, at which point it would cease using SARB-Link.
Swift, the Society for Worldwide Inter-bank Financial Communications, is the secure network used by the world's major financial institutions for relaying electronic messages.
"In view of the fact that Strate has decided to establish its own infrastructure, Strate approached Swift, which offered an interim solution in the form of Swift Alliance, to allow earlier migration from SARB link," Strate says.
"This represents an interim measure that will provide Strate with a sophisticated messaging network until it ultimately migrates to SwiftNet next year."
Strate CEO Monica Singer says the costs incurred in the installation of the Swift Alliance network will not be duplicated in the migration to SwiftNet.
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