SRTMS to Open Affiliate in Gaborone Financial Centre

[Johannesburg, 14 November 2002] - Standard Risk and Treasury Management Services (SRTMS), the treasury services firm that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Standard Bank Group, is to set up an affiliate in Botswana to service corporates in the SADC region and elsewhere in Africa.

The affiliate, called Risk and Treasury Services, represents the first involvement by one of the big four banking groups in Botswana's International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Gaborone.

SRTMS is still awaiting exchange control approval from the Reserve Bank to finalise the establishment of Risk and Treasury Services.

SRTMS joins 12 other companies that have signed up to be involved in the IFSC in the year since the Botswana government created the fiscal and regulatory environment to make Botswana attractive to companies offering financial services across regional and international markets.

Alan Boshwaen, director of the Botswana IFSC says other SA banks and companies will now consider its offering more seriously following SRTMS's example.

He says Botswana will benefit from the transfer of specialised treasury knowledge and skills. It follows the recent statement by SA finance minister Trevor Manuel that SA entities will be able to obtain exchange control approval to invest up to R2 billion in Africa. The IFSC offers an effective springboard to expanding operations in the continent, he says.

Brian Alexander of Risk and Treasury Services, says it will target medium to large organisations with their offer of a broad base of treasury related services. “Risk and Treasury Services has experienced staff in place to provide full treasury functionality, including treasury systems and backup, efficient execution of transactions and effective handling of back office functions,” he says.

"The main focus will be the outsourcing of treasury and risk management functions and related services."

Alexander says that for most corporate treasuries, it is difficult to tap the range of skills and resources available to a specialised service provider such as Risk and Treasury Services.

Risk and Treasury Services has relationships with most major SA and international banking institutions, says Alexander, and will offer risk management in money market and capital markets, foreign exchange, precious metals, base metals and energy.

It will deal in a number of instruments, including call and term investments, gilts, spot and forwards, swaps, vanilla and exotic derivatives.

source - ZaFinance