Reserve Bank of New Zealand chooses SIA for new RTGS system
Geoff Bascand, RBNZ
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), the nation’s central bank, has chosen Italian payments company SIA to implement and support a new real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system.
The new system will replace the current exchange settlement account system (ESAS). It will be delivered by SIA’s subsidiary Perago, based in South Africa.
Perago is a notable player in the RTGS space, with Danmarks Nationalbank (Danish central bank), Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden’s central bank) and Bank of Zambia among its customers.
Geoff Bascand, RBNZ Deputy Governor, says it wanted to “find and use an existing off-the-shelf system rather than build a new bespoke system”.
The functionality of the existing ESAS system will largely be incorporated into the replacement, including auto-overnight reverse purchase of eligible securities, tiered interest, authorisation and liquidity management features, and key interfaces to the Swift messaging system.
Bascand says after an initial planning phase, RBNZ expects to start settling on options and features in the second half of this year, with installation of the new RTGS to follow.
Along with implementation of the Perago RTGS system, the bank will replace the underlying payment system IT infrastructure, which is currently integrated with the corporate IT infrastructure. The new RTGS will operate on a standalone IT infrastructure.
In a separate and recent deal, the bank announced it is implementing Numerix’s Oneview for trade valuation and risk management analytics.
