WEST AFRICAN MONETARY INSTITUTE (WAMI)

Project name: Multinational/Consultancy-West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) Payment System Development Project in The Gambia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Project No: P – Z1 – HZ0 -001

Grant No: 2100 1550 12266

  1. The West African Monetary Institute (WAMI) has received a Grant from the African Development Fund (ADF) towards the development of the payment systems in The Gambia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. The Gambia and Sierra Leone are English speaking countries, while Guinea is a French speaking country. WAMI proposes to use a portion of the proceeds of the Grant to procure the services of a Consulting Firm to work with the Client during the implementation of the WAMZ Payments System Project in thethree countries.
  1. The principal objective of the project is to improve and standardize the payment systems of The Gambia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. In addition to enhancing the financial sector performance of these countriesthe project will harmonize the payment systems in these countries to the same level as for other two member states in the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) in order to facilitate the process of the launching a monetary union.
  1. The main components of the WAMZ Payments System Project are:
  • Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system for inter-bank and large value funds transfer.
  • Automated Clearing House and Automated Cheque Processing to promote electronic transactions, thereby, reducing the time taken to clear transactions.
  • Scriptless Securities Settlement (SSS) system to facilitate conduct of Open market Operations and Banking system liquidity management.
  • Banking application systems of the three countries to ensure an effective interface with the payments system ,including the RTGS and ACH systems.
  1. Acquisition of the services of consultants will follow the ADB’s Rules of Procedures for the use of Consultants. The procurement of the required consulting services listed below will be done on the basis of short-listing.
  1. In collaboration with the Client and National Central Banks in The Gambia and Sierra Leone are English speaking countries, while Guinea the three countries, the Consulting Firm will:
  • Review current state of payment system architecture, business requirements, and system functional specifications, and propose the future state
  • Prepare, bidding documents for acquisition of goods and works for the payments system and related applications
  • Develop detailed project plans
  • Assess and recommend the appropriate integration of accounting and settlement systems
  • Implement in collaboration with National Central Banks in the three countries the RTGS system and related applications, including recommendations on the appropriate linkages and interfaces with ACH, SSS/CSD and GL and other systems
  • Manage the relationship with the vendors for the RTGS system, ACH/ACP, SSS system/Banking application
  • Design the interrelationship between the interbank payment and securities and settlement systems
  • Support the implementation of appropriate intra-day liquidity facilities based on collateralization supported by Delivery versus payment (DVP) concepts.
  • Support the relation with the stakeholders involved in the reform process.
  • Identify critical policy, organizational and staffing issues that would impact the ability to support successfully all aspects of the reform, including training needs for the project implementation.
  • Support and train users in the new environment.
  1. Bidding documents are expected to be available on December 8,2008.
  1. Interested bidders may obtain further information and should confirm their interest in writing, by contacting:

C.O.Odiaka

Projector Director

West African Monetary Institute

PremierTowers 99th floor)

Opp. Pension House

P.M.B CT.75

Accra, Ghana

Tel (233-21) 676908

Fax (233-21) 676903

E-mail: