Central Bank of Seychelles Awards ProgressSoft the Nationwide Electronic Check Clearing Project

With this project, ProgressSoft now boasts a record of 7 countrywide implementations of its solution, which, as of 2001, has been introduced as the world’s first electronic, image-based solution for clearing checks within the same day.

“It brings us a great pleasure to be awarded another country-wide Electronic Image-based Check Clearing project in Seychelles. While we are on the verge of the live run of two more country-wide Electronic Check Clearing projects in Bahrain and in Nepal, this is but an emphasis that this new award endorses our excellence and primacy within real-time payment solution providers around the globe”, expressed Mr. Michael Wakileh, CEO, ProgressSoft.

As part of their evaluation of tender proposals, delegates from the Central Bank of Seychelles visited Doha to view the live operations of ProgressSoft’s Electronic Check Clearing solution in The State of Qatar. Today, and in less than a month following that visit, ProgressSoft has been selected over giant international competitors as the preferred supplier to develop and implement its system in the Seychelles.

“We are adding this project now to a longer list of success stories for real-time payments and I am sure we will transform banking and payments in Seychelles to new paradigms. I must thank all of ProgressSoft team, as they are the true reason for winning this project “, added Wakileh.

Implementation of ProgressSoft’s solution will take place at the Central Bank, followed by all banks in the country, including Barclays Bank, Mauritius Commercial Bank, Bank of Baroda, Habib Bank, Nouvobanq, Seychelles Saving Bank and BMI Offshore Bank.

The new solution will replace the physical transportation and manual clearing sessions taking place at the Central Bank of Seychelles with an electronic exchange of check images between the Central Bank and member banks. The goal is to achieve a clearing schedule of same-day value date for deposited checks, in place of the traditional clearing process which requires several days.

Electronification of inward and outward check items will also enable banks to truncate paper checks from the branch level.

The shortened clearing cycle will be beneficial to the Seychelles in that it will increase cash flows and boost economic performance. Confidence in the check as a payment instrument is expected to increase as the system will accelerate availability of bad check information and fraudulent item detection. Meanwhile, massive reductions in operational expenses incurred by manual clearing will be realized at the Central Bank and member banks.