Sibos, Amsterdam, 27th October 2010 – SWIFT, the provider of global financial messaging services, announced today that Bank Indonesia will use SWIFT as the primary messaging platform for the Indonesian banking community to access its second generation Real Time Gross Settlement (BI-RTGS) and Scripless Securities Settlement System (BI-SSSS).
The move mirrors those of leading RTGS systems around the world, including PDS in Australia, CHAPS in the UK, CHATS in Hong Kong, CLS, and TARGET2 in Europe, which also have implemented SWIFT as their platform of choice. Indonesia is the 9th country in the Asia Pacific region to choose SWIFT.
SWIFT connects more than 60 high-value payment systems worldwide covering more than 90 countries, including five pan-regional initiatives (TARGET2, BCEAO, BEAC, COMESA and ECCB).
Ronald Waas, Director of Accounting and Payment & Settlement System Directorate, Bank Indonesia, explains, “Most of BI-RTGS/BI-SSSS participating banks have been using SWIFT for their cross-border transactions to their correspondent banks for many years. By providing them with SWIFT as the platform to access 2nd Generation BI-RTGS and BI-SSSS, we allow them to use a single window and the same standards for both domestic and cross-border transactions. This will enable straight-through processing, which in turn will reduce operational errors and increase processing efficiency.”
“The adoption of SWIFT, the global provider of financial messaging services, for the infrastructure of Indonesia’s high-value payments and securities settlement will lead to major improvements in interoperability of Indonesia’s financial infrastructure, will provide Indonesia financial system with a future-proof infrastructure, and will help Indonesia integrate with financial markets in the region such as the one in ASEAN,” Waas adds.
The implementation of SWIFT will include the use of SWIFT FIN Y-Copy, Browse, FileAct and InterAct services for BI-RTGS and BI-SSSS transactions.
Ian Johnston, Chief Executive, Asia Pacific, SWIFT, says, “Indonesia’s current strong economic growth will benefit not only Indonesia, but ASEAN and beyond. The move to the SWIFT messaging platform will provide a stable foundation for Indonesia's financial services industry and its future growth.”
Implementation will start in Q1 2011, pilot bank testing in Q3 2011 and industry-wide testing in Q1 2012. 2nd Generation BI-RTGS and BI-SSSS are expected to go live in Q3 2012.
Bank Indonesia will announce the vendor consortium that will develop the new middle-tier system to link with SWIFT by year-end.
Note to the editor
The global trend for market infrastructures to adopt SWIFT messaging started in Europe with Bank of England’s NewCHAPS and Germany’s RTGSplus going live on SWIFTNet in 2001. They were followed by CLS in 2002 and Banca d’Italia’s BIREL in 2003, and European TARGET2 in 2007.
In Asia Pacific, Australia and New Zealand have been using FINCopy services for over a decade — since 1997 and 1998 respectively. The Philippines and Thailand selected SWIFT messaging for their new generation of RTGS systems in 2001, Sri Lanka in 2003, Singapore in 2006 and Fiji in 2007. In May 2009, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Limited replaced their proprietary platform and went live on SWIFTNet FIN, completing the full suite of SWIFT products and services in July 2010.
TARGET2 is the single shared platform for the settlement in real time of predominantly high-value euro payments in central bank money. It was successfully launched on 19 November 2007.
BCEAO (Central Bank of West African States) is a regional initiative with a single RTGS platform that serves eight African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo).
BEAC (Bank of Central African States) is a regional initiative with a single RTGS platform that serves six central African countries (Cameroon Central African Republic Chad Equatorial Guinea Gabon Republic of the Congo).
COMESA RTGS (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) is a regional initiative that uses an interlink between RTGS systems in COMESA member countries, similar to TARGET2 in Europe.
ECCB (Eastern Caribbean Central Bank) is the monetary authority of a group of six independent Caribbean and two British overseas territories.
About SWIFT
SWIFT is a member-owned cooperative that provides the communications platform, products and services to connect more than 9,500 banking organizations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 209 countries. SWIFT enables its users to exchange automated, standardized financial information securely and reliably, thereby lowering costs, reducing operational risk and eliminating operational inefficiencies. SWIFT also brings the financial community together to work collaboratively to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest.
For more information, please refer to our website www.swift.com or contact:
SWIFT
Sandra Gavard
+65 6347 8068
sandra.gavard@swift.com
Bite Communications
Rosemary Biggs
+852 2973 0222
rosemary.biggs@bitecommunications.com