Nigeria’s central counterparty, NG Clearing has signed an agreement with software development firm, Mantissa Infotech, for the development, implementation and maintenance of bespoke clearing and settlement technology for its operations.
The announcement follows NG Clearing’s receipt of an approval in principle from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in September 2020, to clear and settle exchange traded derivatives instruments.
The technology platform will support the clearing and settlement of derivative instruments across various asset classes including futures and options contracts on indices, equity shares, commodities, currency, and rates.
NG Clearing is promoted by The Nigerian Stock Exchange and Central Securities Clearing System along with key stakeholders such as the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, Greenwich Merchant Bank, Union Bank of Nigeria, and United Bank for Africa.
Speaking on the development, the company’s managing director and CEO, Tapas Das, says: “We are very excited about this deal, as the deployment of the technology platform puts us in a position to commence operations as soon as we receive final approval from the SEC.”
Das explains Mantissa’s “vast experience and end-to-end capability in providing a suite of bespoke technology solutions to leading exchanges and clearing houses in India comes in very handy”.
Mantissa has provided both the trading and the clearing and settlement software for 14 years to the National Multi-Commodity Exchange of India Limited (NMCEIL), which was the first national
level commodity exchange in India, until NMCEIL was merged with Indian Commodity
Exchange Limited (ICEX) in 2018.
“Mantissa’s broad experience from providing its technology service to various market
infrastructure, including NMCEIL, Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India, Metropolitan Clearing Corporation of India and ICEX, has been beneficial in the development of the state of the art technology and we expect that our stakeholders will find the technology very versatile and useful,” Das adds.
