Global Technology SymTec, one of South Africa`s leading electronic financial services` providers, has announced that SWIFTNet, a product of SWIFT, has made a significant entry into the South African financial market. Global Technology SymTec, part of Global Technology Banking, is the SWIFT business partner for southern Africa.
This follows the recent implementation of SWIFT Alliance Access for Banco International de Mozambique and SWIFT Alliance Entry for Indian Ocean Bank, both financial software products. In addition, SWIFT Alliance Access was sold to Rennies Bank Limited.
SWIFT is a provider of telecommunication of financial transactions and straight-through processing, aimed at improving productivity and customer service in the financial community.
Paul van Dyk, Managing Director of Global Technology SymTec, said that three of South Africa`s largest banks, namely Nedcor Bank Ltd, Standard Bank of South Africa and ABSA Bank, had all signed letters of intent to make use of SWIFTNet and its by-products InterAct and FileAct. They have also been joined in this endeavour by STRATE, the dematerialised equities depository.
"SWIFT was introduced to South Africa as early as 1982, and in 1986, the South African Payment System (ZAPS) and the US Dollar Netting System (ZANS) were introduced, based on SWIFT message types. Since then, we have seen significant growth of product usage. During 1999, almost 1.1 million messages were carried over the SWIFT network, a growth of 13% year-on-year," comments Van Dyk.
The average daily traffic handled by the SWIFT network for 1999 equalled 4,452,908 transactions.
"Year-on-year (from 1998 to 1999), the percentage growth rate on SWIFT usage for South Africa was 20,55%, which places South Africa in the top 20 countries regarding traffic volumes. This indicates that South Africa is not far behind first-world countries, bearing in mind that Africa as a continent contributes only three per cent to world traffic volumes.
"SWIFTNet replaces the former products of SWIFT Alliance and SWIFT Entry. The banks will use the SWIFTNet services for central bank cash reporting and for interfacing with STRATE, as well as the functions formerly provided by the Alliance and Entry products," he said.
South Africa was the first to use SWIFT for its payments system infrastructure, and it is envisaged that within a five-year period, global usage should be in effect.
GlOBUS, which is integrated with SWIFT, provides Front End Relay, allowing client-to-client communication and Online Real Network, permitting constant online communication until trade has been concluded.
"We see SWIFTNet not only as a commercial initiative, but as an initiative for the whole African community. SWIFTNet is the gateway to the entire SWIFT product family, and the SWIFT web station. E-commerce is the route to seamless transactions, and in the near future, we envisage a paperless working environment," concludes Van Dyk.
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