Banker S.A. March 2013 | Page 39

on profitability and costs that our customers are facing. Across the industry, financial institutions face growing competition in mobile payments, are seeing margins shrink, and have to comply with ever more complex regulation. More and more of our customers – and the industry – are looking to SWIFT to help them address these pressures. ANY MAJOR PROJECTS IN THE PIPELINE FOR THE BANKING INDUSTRY IN THE REGION? Ghana’s community-based Sanction Screening project was initiated in 2012 and full implementation will be completed in 2013. This is a very exciting project and I think that, upon completion, it would make an interesting case study of what benefits can be derived from a community-based approach to regulatory compliance. There are also a number of RTGS systems to be implemented in the West African Monetary Zone region during the course of 2013, including Nigeria, where a lot of progress has been made in the implementation of SWIFT for the country’s messaging system. We will collaborate with the central bank and its service providers in order to meet the project’s challenging deadlines, but we are looking forward to this. SWIFT is involved in three of Africa’s regionalisation projects, namely WAMZ, EAC and SADC. Whilst not detracting from WAMZ and EAC, I am especially excited about the SADC project. Over the past two years, huge strides have been made in this project and a pilot implementation involving five countries is planned for 2013. What I find interesting is that the project team has not only considered the systems requirements for the regional RTGS system, but has also taken an holistic view of services to be offered to participants in order to optimise the value that they would derive from this project. In addition, the project team has succeeded in maintaining a high-level of commitment from participants, which is a prerequisite for a project of this nature. SWIFT APPOINTS TRUSTLINK BUSINESS PARTNER FOR WEST, CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN AFRICA As extension of the SWIFT Johannesburg office, Trustlink will deliver the full range of SWIFT’s products and services. ON 18 MARCH, SWIFT, the financial messaging provider for more than 10 000 financial institutions and corporations in 212 countries and territories, announced the appointment of Trustlink a Business Partner for West, Central