SunGard says Infrastructure Finance Corporation (INCA), South Africa’s largest private infrastructure debt fund, is to automate its treasury operations using its AvantGard Quantum system.
The installation of Quantum replaced an in-house development based on the Microsoft Access database that currently supports INCA’s 12-member staff. Stuart Drysdale, executive director of finance at INCA, says that it began looking for a new system in the second half of 2002 and evaluated a number of options before settling on Quantum. “The flexibility of the system allows us to adapt it to our needs, and we found that it was very user-friendly, which is important to us,” says Drysdale. “Since our establishment, other competitors have entered the market, so we have had to get smarter, as well as addressing regulatory issues such as the introduction of the IAS 39 accounting standard. As well as providing mark-to-market risk management, the SunGard software will also facilitate straight through processing and it will lead to smoother administration, particularly as we are planning to expand to other parts of Africa.”
INCA was established in 1996 in response to Nelson Mandela’s plea to the private sector of South Africa to redress the historical imbalance in infrastructure funding between white and black municipalities. A 100 per cent privately-held company, the main funding sources it draws on are local and international market funds, raised through a series of bond issues and long-term loans extended to the corporation by international financial institutions.
“INCA is a unique operation, and we are very pleased that it has chosen Quantum to help it expand the scope of its important work,” concludes Martin Boyd, executive vice president EMEA, for SunGard Treasury Systems. “Flexibility and ease-of-use are central to the development of our systems, allowing clients to create and deploy solutions that answer their needs.”