Archive

2011-08-20

CMA’s solution for the Central Securities Depository (DEPO/X) goes live at the Central Bank of Oman (CBO)

Stockholm, August 20th, 2011 CMA of Sweden, the world leading provider of payment systems solutions to the central financial institutions, has announced today that its central securities depository, online auctioning and securities settlement system called DEPO/X, has successfully gone into live operations at the Central Bank of the Sultanate of Oman.

CMA’s DEPO/X offers full automation of depository operations for state and corporate securities covering all the steps constituting the full process of an auction such as registering, bidding and settlement. Due to its online integration with the Real-Time Gross Settlement system (RTS/X, previously installed in CBO by CMA in 2005) DEPO/X can provide a true Delivery versus Payment (DvP) model.

Thanks to DEPO/X system Central Bank of Oman in sync with the other 19 primary dealers, Ministry of Finance, Muscat Clearing and Depository Company, numerous direct and indirect investors instantly recieved the following benefits:

• Automation of various operations with securities;
• Online auctioning;
• Online real-time settlement of DvP related cash legs;
• Securities secondary market operations:
  • Outright DvP/DvF;
  • ILF/Overnight/REPO/Buyback;
  • Conversion/Extension;
  • Discounting/Rediscounting;
  • Money market operations;
• Online portfolio management:
  • Balances reports at any point of time;
  • Possibility to management different sections of own portfolio;
• Online reporting facilities:
  • Reports upon request;
  • Reports published by system operator.

CMAs’ DEPO/X is compliant with World Bank and BIS principles and recommendations regarding securities settlement and payment systems thus allowing the mitigation of all types of related risks. DEPO/X significantly reduces or even totally avoids all types of risks related to payment systems (legal, operational, financial, security and systemic).

“In the course of the last 7 years, CMA has successfully provided 3 of its flagship products to the Central Bank of the Sultanate of Oman, we appreciate CBO’s trust in our company and solutions and we are looking forward to more projects in Oman in the future” – as per Mr. Alexey Nazarov, Managing Director, CMA .”

2012-01-17

CMA has successfully conducted performance tests o CMA's Real Time Gross Settlement system (RTS/X) at IBM Systems Solutions Center.

Stockholm, January 17th, 2012. CMA has announced today that it has successfully carried out performance tests of its Real Time Gross Settlement system (RTS/X) in a join effort of CMA team and IBM specialists in IBM Systems Solutions Center, Bangalore, India.

Test scenarios included different types of payment messages, and allowed simulation of workload close to real workload in the existing RTS/X production installations.

CMA’s RTS/X system was configured in a way that the access servers were running integration bus software that made RTS/X service accessible to external parties (such as banking institutions), load generators and clients (XAdapter’s). All of the access servers were active and client connections were distributed between them. Database and Core server was running RTS/X core application that provided RTGS settlement service and other services to its clients through the gateway servers. This server was connected to the external storage, used to store all of the data files of Oracle database.

On the basis of testing results, it could be concluded that throughput does not diminish with an increase in a number of messages. In the end, 1 million of payment transactions had been processed in less than 3.5 hours.

The tests have demonstrated high performance of RTS/X solution installed on IBM zLinux on System z9 / Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.1 (Santiago), RDBMS Oracle 11gR2, with an ability to process 321 200 payments per hour.

There is room to significantly increase achieved results by improving disk subsystem and connecting more clients to the system.

CMA would like to thank IBM System Solution Center team in Bangalore for assistance in those tests.

2011-12-16

CMA’s Real Time Gross Settlement system went live at the Central Bank of Gambia.

Stockholm, 16th of December, 2011. Today CMA announced that its Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) has been successfully launched into live operations at the Central Bank of Gambia.

CMA’s project implementation of its Real Time Gross Settlements system and Central Securities Depository in West African Monetary Zone, has produced its first result, namely the launch of the Real Time Gross Settlement system at the Central Bank of Gambia. Currently, 13 commercial banks are connected to the system. The RTGS system is fully integrated with the Central Bank’s Core Banking and Bulk Clearing Settlement systems.

Central Bank of Gambia is part of the West African Monetary Zone, which consists of:

• Bank of Ghana
• Central Bank of Nigeria
• Bank of Sierra Leone
• Central Bank of Guinea
• Central Bank of The Gambia
• Central Bank of Liberia

According with the project schedule, CMA intends to launch its systems at the Central Bank of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in 2012.

Mr. Fatou Touray Balajo (RTGS Project Manager at the Central Bank of Gambia), commented: "This is another step forward towards the implementation of The Gambia's ambitious National Payment System project. The launching of the RTGS system will bring great benefits to Gambia's Payment System and economy as problems of bounce cheques and delays in receipt of payments are prevented, since settlement is on real time basis".

2011-10-25

CMA will provide its Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and Central Securities Depository (CSD) solutions to the Central Bank of Nigeria

Stockholm, October 25th, 2011. CMA has announced today that it has been awarded a contract for the provision of the RTGS and CSD solutions to the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Payments System Vision 2020 includes implementation of an RTGS system, which is intended for large-value and time critical payments, for the inter-bank and customers’ transactions as well as meeting the needs of a modern payments system, together with an implementation of a Central Securities Depository (CSD), which is one of the pillars of global financial infrastructure. CSD is a system that holds securities accounts and enables securities to be transferred and settled by book entry according to a set of predetermined multilateral rules.

Implementing a world-class payment system infrastructure will be critical for Nigeria as it seeks to increase its influence on financial markets within West African Monetary Zone and beyond, since a modern payment system is the mechanism for settlement of all other payments, foreign exchange and securities settlement systems.

CMA of Sweden has been selected by the CBN in the result of a competitive bidding process. In addition to various requirements of the CBN, CMA’s RTS/X solution for RTGS will satisfy the Bank of International Settlement’s (BIS), Committee of Payments and Settlement System’s (CPSS) Core Principles for Systemically Important Payment Systems standards. At the same time, the scope of CMA’s DEPO/X solution for the CSD will seek to accommodate all financial instruments as may be authorized by the CBN. The financial instruments shall include but not limited to: Federal Government Bonds, Nigerian Treasury Bills, CBN bills and other financial instruments.

2011-10-10

CMA has singed a contract for the provision of the Government Securities and Forex Trading, Depository and Money Market Systems to the National Bank of Kyrgyz Republic.

Stockholm, October 10th, 2011. CMA has announced today that it has successfully negotiated a contract with the National Bank of Kyrgyz Republic (NBKR) for the provision of the Government Securities and Forex Trading, Depository and Money Market Systems.

The main objective of the NBKR is to support its national currency and provide stability and security to the banking and payment systems of the republic. One of the underlying principles for the stable operations of a National Bank is an information system, which would provide reliable, complex yet standardized information that covers a spectrum of financial activities. At the same time, due to its significant flexibility, this system should not hinder the functioning and improvement of the existing business processes.

Therefore, NBKR, had set an objective to implement a new system for the Government Securities and Forex Trading, Depository and Money Market. This project includes procurement of the trading platforms and a depository system together with its integration with the payment infrastructure that as a result, will facilitate introduction of the DvP (Delivery-versus-Payment) principles in order to reduce settlement risks.

This modernization of the payment system infrastructure plays a vital role in improving the credentials and trust of the internal infrastructure, together with the motivation of participant banks and gives a boost for the expansion of its operations in the future.

In order to meet the aforementioned objectives, CMA has proposed its DEPO/X solution for Central Securities Depository with various plug-in modules that cover Forex Trading, Money Market etc.

2011-10-03

CMA’s Real Time Gross Settlement system (RTS/X) has undergone benchmark performance tests in Oracle Solution Centre, UK.

Stockholm, October 3rd, 2011. CMA of Sweden, the current world-leading provider of payment system solutions had successfully concluded benchmark performance test of its RTS/X solution in Oracle Solution Centre, UK.

The main objectives of those tests were:

• Verification of compatibility of standard RTS/X solution with Oracle SPARC architecture;
• Fine tuning RTS/X parameters for Solaris/SPARC environment;
• Achievement of maximum possible RTS/X performance on proposed hardware setup;

All the above listed objectives were achieved successfully throughout the tests. The following configuration was used:

RTS/X system was configured to use six servers: one database, one core application and four access servers. Access servers were running business logic and integration bus software that made RTS/X service accessible to external parties (such as banking institutions). All of the access servers were active and client connections were distributed between them. Core server was running RTS/X core application, which provided various services to business logic servers. Database server was connected to storage, which was configured for Oracle ASM to store RTS/X database. Database redo logs and data files were placed on different ASM disk groups on independent LUNs

As a result, the tests have demonstrated high performance of RTS/X solution installed on Oracle SPARC/Solaris 10/Oracle RDBMS 11gR2, with the ability to process 175 settlement transactions per second (or 1 256 000 payments per hour). There is a possibility to further improve achieved results by adding more access servers and connecting more clients to the system.

CMA would like to sincerely thank the Oracle Solution Center team in UK for the kind assistance during these testes.

2011-06-15

CMA signs a contract for the provision of Outright Open Market Operations System to the Central Bank of Chile .

Stockholm, June 15th, 2011. CMA of Sweden has announced today that it has entered into contractual agreement with the Central Bank of Chile for the provision of the Outright Open Market Operations System.

The Central Bank of Chile (BCCh) intended to modernize the current system it uses for the auction of debt instruments and other outright open market operations. This system shall permit the Bank to comply with its role of organization, which regulates market liquidity, providing an equitable and transparent access to all the participants of the primary market, managing outright open market operations (OMOs), intervening the monetary market through operations of debt instrument sales (contraction of monetary supply). Additionally, the system will provide the right conditions necessary to carry out auctions for the purchase /sale of foreign currencies, and advance redemption of debt instruments, either by stripping, securities exchange or advanced redemptions.

CMA has been awarded the contract as a result of the competitive bidding, organized by the BCCh in the year 2009.

The new Outright Open Market Operations System – based on CMA’s DEPO/X solution, will be part of a Global System of Open Market Operations, which also includes the Reverse Open Market Operations such as Intraday Liquidity Facility (ILF), Deposit and Marginal Lending Facilities (Standing Facilities), Repo Operations, Securities Lending (Delivery Versus Delivery), Liquidity Deposits, Operations with Derivatives and Swaps of Foreign Currencies.

CMA of Sweden has been selected to provide its payment system solutions to the Bank Indonesia (Central Bank of Indonesia)

Stockholm, March 31st, 2011. CMA has announced today that it had successfully finalized the contract negotiations for the provision of Second Generation Application of Bank Indonesia Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and Scriptless Securities Settlement System (SSSS) for the Bank Indonesia (BI - the official name for the Central Bank of the Republic of Indonesia). In this project, CMA is teaming up with the Praweda Ciptakarsa Informatika – an Indonesian company. CMA takes on the subcontracting role under the Praweda, whereas Praweda entered into prime contract with the BI. CMA and Praweda consortium has been selected by the BI in the result of “Next Generation RTGS” competitive bidding procedure, which has been initiated by the BI in the middle of 2009.

The new system from CMA will replace the currently used system and provide BI and its financial community with an expansive and more flexible set of tools and services that will result in much higher performance. The solution, which will be implemented, is based on CMA’s own RTS/X, DEPO/X and TRADE/X software products.

CMA of Sweden has been selected to provide its payment system solutions to the Bank Indonesia (Central Bank of Indonesia)

Stockholm, March 31st, 2011. CMA has announced today that it had successfully finalized the contract negotiations for the provision of Second Generation Application of Bank Indonesia Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and Scriptless Securities Settlement System (SSSS) for the Bank Indonesia (BI - the official name for the Central Bank of the Republic of Indonesia). In this project, CMA is teaming up with the Praweda Ciptakarsa Informatika – an Indonesian company. CMA takes on the subcontracting role under the Praweda, whereas Praweda entered into prime contract with the BI.

CMA and Praweda consortium has been selected by the BI in the result of “Next Generation RTGS” competitive bidding procedure, which has been initiated by the BI in the middle of 2009.

The new system from CMA will replace the currently used system and provide BI and its financial community with an expansive and more flexible set of tools and services that will result in much higher performance. The solution, which will be implemented, is based on CMA’s own RTS/X, DEPO/X and TRADE/X software products.

The Central Bank of Rwanda started operating the new RIPPS system implemented by CMA of Sweden.

Kigali, Rwanda, February 11th, 2011. The central bank has started operating a new system, the Rwanda Integrated Payments Processing System (RIPPS), geared towards making payment systems in the country efficient and reliable. According to Mr. Francois Kanimba, the central bank Governor, the new system provides integrated facilities for clearing and settlement of all interbank electronic payments, irrespective of their value and level of urgency. RIPPS comprises of three main components, including an Automated Clearing House (ACH- a netting system), a Real Time Gross Settlement Transfer System (RTGS) and a Central Securities Depository (CSD).

Mr. Kanimba also pointed out that the new system will facilitate the banking sector to reduce reliance on cash, support new and innovative payments instruments and systems such as use of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and mobile money. "It is up to the businesses and the general public to demand more efficient payment methods and ensure that their banks provide these new services," he said. With the RIPPS, it is expected the usage of cheques will also be reduced to minimal levels. Last year, the central bank signed a contract with CMA Small Systems AB of Sweden to implement the program. Kanimba also said RIPPS will also facilitate the development of capital markets by allowing electronic transfer of funds across the region.

The new system is also part of the integration of payment systems within the East African Community being conducted through a project implemented by the five central banks.

While RTGS is operational in three EAC countries -Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania-the region is currently working towards creating a regional clearing platform for the integration of RTGS.

The new system was funded by the World Bank through the Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Project (CEDP).

" RIPPS will revolutionize the way interbank payments are carried out and will save money, improve the speed of transactions and increase safety," Kanimba told a press briefing during the launch of RIPPS.