The Bank of Athens has renewed its support contract with Vesta Technologies, spurred by recent legislation from the Reserve Bank of South Africa regarding the Bank of Athens` SAMOS (South African Multiple Option Settlement) system.
The South African Reserve Bank has embarked on a phased implementation of certain risk reduction measures in the National Payment System (NPS). Of specific importance, according to Greg O`Brien, treasury manager at the Bank of Athens, are the measures to discontinue the practice of back-dating Payment Clearing Houses (PCH) batch settlements. He says this is done by moving to the same-day settlement of these batches in the inter-bank SAMOS system and by removing high-value payments from inappropriate payment streams.
"It is expected of all South African banks to comply with this requirement by the end of the year, and a bank`s SAMOS system is vital to this process. That is why the service contract that we have with Vesta is considered vital by us, as our SAMOS system affects not only our internal processes, but obviously our client affairs as well," says O`Brien.
George Smalberger, executive director at Vesta Technologies, says that prior to installing SAMOS at the Bank of Athens, Vesta had been doing work for the Reserve Bank. "We worked with the Reserve Bank for quite some time. Clearly they believed in our expertise and, as a result, recommended our services to the Bank of Athens."
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