BankservAfrica is an

automated clearing house An automated clearing house (ACH) is a computer-based electronic network for processing transactions, usually domestic low value payments, between participating financial institutions. It may support both credit transfers and direct debits. The ...

located in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

and operates both nationally and within

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. Annually processing billions of transactions valued at trillions of

South African rand The South African rand, or simply the rand, ( sign: R; code: ZAR) is the official currency of the Southern African Common Monetary Area: South Africa, Namibia (alongside the Namibian dollar), Lesotho (alongside the Lesotho loti) and Eswatini ...

; BankservAfrica's clients include banks, corporates, government and the retail sector. By volume of transactions alone, it is rated as Africaʼs largest automated payments clearing house.

History

Prior to the establishment of BankservAfrica, the South African banking industry owned several companies that provided shared services to the industry in a number of different payment channels. As these companies operated in silos, a need was identified for a single structure and an interbank task group was appointed to investigate the feasibility. BankservAfrica was founded in 1972 as the Automated Clearing Bureau (Pty) Limited to service the banking industry by providing interoperability between the banks. In December 1993 the name changed to Bankserv and in 2010 the group rebranded as BankservAfrica.

Shareholders

Wholly owned by South Africa's commercial banks, shareholders include:
/ref> * Absa Group Limited, Absa Bank Limited (23.125%) * FirstRand Limited (23.125%) * Nedbank Limited (23.125%) * Standard Bank of South Africa Limited (23.125%) * Dandyshelf Group (7.5%), consisting of: ** Grobank **

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** Mercantile Bank **

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Activities

The company ensures that interbank transactions occur in a properly regulated system, compliant with international banking best practice and standards, while reducing risk and complexity in the industry. This has led to BankservAfrica being the trusted partner of the South African financial services industry and integral to the country's national payments system. BankservAfrica is licensed by the Payments Association of South Africa and regulated by the

South African Reserve Bank The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is the central bank of South Africa. It was established in 1921 after Parliament passed an act, the "Currency and Bank Act of 10 August 1920", as a direct result of the abnormal monetary and financial condit ...

and the central banks within the African countries where it provides services. BankservAfrica's SASWITCH brand was a world first in the 1980s: SASWITCH allows remote ATM access via any institution's clients with any other institution's ATM, regardless of network protocol.

Services

Services comprise: * Payment collection * Payment switching, clearing and settlement * Payment consulting * Hosting and operating mission-critical systems * Business process outsourcing *

SWIFT Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT, ...

bureau and payment solutions * Disaster recovery and business continuity Dual processing is provided through a production site and a disaster recovery site; to ensure core processing continues uninterrupted should a disaster occur at the production facility.

References

External links

* * {{LinkedIn page, company/bankservafrica Banking in South Africa Financial services companies established in 1993 Payment clearing systems