Press Release –  July 2021

Central Bank of Somalia’s STARS is Live on Montran ATS

 
London, United Kingdom – 19 July 2021 – JETHRO Limited, the digital banking accelerator and certified technical partner for Temenos across Sub-Sahara African countries, today announced that Central Bank of Somalia’s STARS is live on Montran ATS.

In the past, transaction processing was inefficient. Settlements were subjected to waiting periods and processed in batches resulting in numerous disbenefits. The Central Bank of Somalia (CBS) embarked on a transformation plan to deploy a real-time settlement system, called Somalia Transaction Automation and Reporting System (STARS), which required the integration of the Montran Automated Transaction System (ATS) with the CBS core banking system (Temenos T24). This new system will enable all banks in Somalia to integrate with the apex financial regulator for the purpose of real-time settlements. The messages to be exchanged between the T24 banking system and ATS are according to the ISO20022 standard, which is the best-in-class messaging standard for financial transactions.

JETHRO’s in-depth knowledge and experience of the Central Bank of Somalia (CBS) T24 system, and previous experience of installing RTGS systems, enabled CBS to recognise the value of having JETHRO as their partner for this project. Amongst other key deliverables, the JETHRO team performed thorough testing of all functionalities, including the way rejected transactions would be processed. The testing identified the need for additional validations to ensure all transactions would be secure and reported on.

All the project milestones were achieved, including the transfer of knowledge to the CBS IT team, to enable them to support the new real-time settlement system. With travel restrictions in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all of the development, implementation, testing and training was completed remotely, and Central Bank of Somalia’s STARS system went live on Montran ATS on Thursday, 15th July, 2021.

Central Bank of Somalia now has an integrated, real-time, inter-bank transactions settlement system. This accomplishment transforms banking for the Central Bank and the financial sector by providing an Automated Transaction System (ATS) featuring 24/7/365 instant funds transfer capabilities, as well as the first ever implementation of ATS on a cloud platform. It brings to banking in Somalia and neighbouring countries, inter-bank payments which features Automated Clearing House (ACH) and Real-Time Gross Settlements (RTGS) facilities. The JETHRO team were privileged to work with the Central Bank of Somalia and Montran on this project, the completion of which provides a stable platform that opens up banking in the Horn of Africa to the rest of the world.

– Ends –

About JETHRO

As a digital banking accelerator and Temenos technical partner, we help our clients to identify the right solution, end-to-end business and technical architecture analysis, roadmap specification (that includes data migration, system integration and testing), implementation, system optimization, training and support even after go-live. JETHRO offers a client-oriented approach that will help your institution to undergo legacy transformation, resolve system issues and realize business outcomes in order to remain competitive. For more information please contact us today!