The battle for stock exchange technology in Africa hotted up with the recent announcement that Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (www.dse.co.tz) is switching its trading, clearing and settlement systems to use South Africa’s Securities and Trading Technology (STT). Previously it had been using the Millennium IT systems now owned by the London Stock Exchange Group.
According to a press release from STT, Moremi Marwa, CEO of DSE said: “We are delighted to partner with STT in our endeavour to transform our exchange into being a focus for enterprises and government long-term fund-raising and a vibrant platform for value and liquidity creation to investors. STT’s robust, efficient and scaleable trading, clearing and settlement systems will facilitate our transformation intent and improve our risk management capabilities”.
According to its website, the DSE’s current market capitalization is TZS 17.3 trillion ($10.6 billion) from a total of 18 listed companies. STT says Government and corporate bonds listed are worth more than $2bn and there are about 185,000 investors. Twelve companies have used the DSE to raise capital through share issues and 13 have issued and listed bonds.
Newspaper Business Day reported that former JSE director Allan Thomson said: “things are happening in Africa quickly now” and the Tanzania development is “a very good move”. He is reportedly not involved in the Tanzania transaction but is working with STT in a consortium to rival South Africa’s authorised central securities depository, Strate. He is also setting up the Bond and Derivatives Exchange of Zambia, the Nairobi Securities Exchange’s derivatives exchange for the East African region and a third exchange, which cannot be named yet.
Michelle Janke, MD of STT said: “We are delighted to have been chosen to provide trading and clearing solutions to the Dar Es Salaam Exchange. Tanzania is a dynamic and fast developing market and we look forward to working with the DSE to upgrade their technology.”
Millennium IT has a good range of African clients, according to its website, including in Botswana, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia and it also powers South Africa’s JSE and the London Stock Exchange and other leading international exchanges. Recently it has been criticized by African exchanges for less service since the LSE takeover of the dynamic Sri Lankan company and for high annual licence fees.
There is no notice of the latest deal on the DSE website, but there is notice of a system breakdown on 25 March that halted trading: “DSE Public Announcement: This morning, Tuesday 25 March,2014 one of the DSE’s key infrastructure failed to startup; as a result the trading system also failed to function. In this consideration, DSE had been forced to halt startup of today’s trading session to allow the system engineers to diagnose the source of problem and repair it accordingly.”