Background

Africa Trade Insurance (ATI) Agency is a multilateral investment and credit risk insurer established in 2001 by African States with the financial support of the World Bank. The Agency has independent legal standing. Its objective is to facilitate, encourage and develop the provision of, or the support for, insurance, including coinsurance, reinsurance, guarantees and other financial instruments and services, for purposes of trade, investments and other productive activities in Africa.

Given that the Agency's business involves the assumption and underwriting of political and commercial risks faced by the business community, effective risk management (RM) is central to its performance and sustainability. On this basis, ATI is adopting an integrated approach to managing institution-wide risks based on best practices.  Developments in the global financial services sector point towards RM becoming an integral part of institutional frameworks of trade and investment insurance.

Project

The GOAL of this project is the improvement of payment and securities settlement systems

The PURPOSE is to reduce systemic risk, facilitate the efficient and sound operation of financial markets, and increase the overall efficiency of the systems to reduce transaction costs in the region's economy. The project also seeks topromote the definition of policies and actions for the harmonization of payment systems, with reference to international best practices, throughout South Asia.

OUTPUTS:  The main outputs of the project are: (i) the delivery of recommendations and reports to country authorities on a confidential basis, covering practical and strategic suggestions for exploiting improvement opportunities; (ii) the preparation of public reports containing a systematic in-depth description of each country's payment and securities settlement systems; (iii) workshops and other training events focusing on issues of particular interest at the request of the authorities; (iv) the creation of a project-specific web page to present the outputs of the SAPI; (v) educational materials and consumer outreach strategy on payment systems; and (vi) the creation of a Working Group on Payment System Issues of regional central banks and the permanent Secretariat for the SAPI in the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

Project LIFE TIME is 24 months from March 2008 till March 2010.

Project BUDGET is $412,000.

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