The Reserve Bank of Malawi implements modern interbank settlement system

Issued by Business Connexion
Johannesburg, 30 May 2001

The Reserve Bank of Malawi has awarded a contract for the implementation of a new national interbank settlement system to Perago Financial System Enablers (Pty) Ltd, a South African-based company specialising in national financial system modernisation. This assignment forms part of a major initiative to modernise the financial system infrastructure in Malawi.

Perago will implement its state-of-the-art CRISPTM real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system, designed and developed by the Perago team over 18 months. All commercial banks in Malawi will be linked to CRISPTM through SWIFT, enabling banks to do real-time fund transfers across their accounts at the central bank. CRISPTM will also enable the commercial banks to manage their payment flows and liquidity requirements.

The technology architecture used will be a Hewlett-Packard high-availability configuration. The contract constitutes the first success in Africa for the global alliance in the field of RTGS systems entered into between Hewlett-Packard and Perago.

The transaction represents Perago`s first international sale of CRISPTM and it is expected that this will pave the way for further implementations in Africa as well as other emerging economies.

The Malawi appointment represents Perago`s second major international contract.

Perago

Perago, a company in the Comparex Holdings group, specialises in financial systems on a national level, including national payment systems and financial market systems.

The experience of Perago in the national payment system domain extends from the core of the payment system, namely the interbank settlement system, and covers interbank payment clearing and payment instrument development.

Perago`s activities in the financial markets include involvement in the South African STRATE initiative, the dematerialisation project of the Johannesburg Securities Exchange and the South African banks. Perago has assisted STRATE with project management, business analysis and in integrating their SAFIRES system with the SAMOS system of the SA Reserve Bank in order to achieve delivery-versus-payment.

Editorial contacts

The Reserve Bank of Malawi implements modern interbank settlement system

Reserve Bank appoints South African-based Perago to implement a real-time gross settlement system as core component of the new Malawi national payment system