Tue, 05 Apr 1994

Money market information center introduced

JAKARTA (JP): Bank Indonesia is introducing a new money market information center providing financial data to all commercial banks and money brokers in the country through a computerized system.

"The center, which is integrated into the computers of its subscribers, is designed to give 24-hour on-line services," the chief of the central bank's money market division, Dahlan Sutalaksana, said here yesterday.

He was speaking at a signing ceremony to mark the transfer of the services from PT Aplikanusa Lintasarta, a data communication and application network service company which engineers the center's system, to the central bank, the operator of the network services. Yesterday's agreement on the transfer was signed by Dahlan and Taufik Akbar, president of Aplikanusa Lintasarta.

Dahlan said that the center will provide financial details of banking activities, including the Jakarta Interbank Offered Rates (JIBOR) for rupiah and foreign currencies; domestic and overseas interbank transactions of rupiah and foreign currencies; conversion rates issued by the central bank and foreign exchange banks; base lending rates, both in rupiah and foreign currencies; interest rates on deposits and commercial papers, as well as reports on the auction of Bank Indonesia Certificates (SBI) and money market securities (SBPU).

"The center also carries reports on the developments in interest rates on SBI, SBPU, deposit certificates and commercial papers traded in the money market, as well as banks' clearance activities," he said.

He said all the processed data will be available for all subscribers.

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"The center also provides a special link with the banks carrying confidential reports on clearance results and financial statements as well as their financial positions," he said.

"But all the confidential reports are available only for the central bank, not for subscribers.

"With the new computerized system, the central bank will be able to rapidly know about the performance of every bank operating in the country," he said.

It is expected the system will help the central bank improve its supervision of commercial banks.

Dahlan was optimistic that the integrated information center also will accelerate activities on the money market which has thus far used telephones for its daily contacts or messengers for carrying documents.

"The system, I guarantee, is quite efficient for subscribers because they do not have to wait until tomorrow for getting today's latest information on the money market' activities," he said.

Taufik Akbar said that 185 banks have subscribed the service of the center.

"Aplikanusa Lintasarta actually run for trial operation of the system in 1992 with 20 banks. In October last year, our network covered 122 banks, and in March this year it covered 185 banks," he said.

He said a subscriber pays around Rp 2 million per month for the network. "The payment includes Rp 1.17 million for telecommunications service and Rp 858,804 for the hiring of hardware," he said.

Taufik said the central bank spent Rp 4 billion for the procurement of software, he added.

Both Dahlan and Taufik said that the information could be made available not only for money brokers, but also for any institutions in the country which need to use the data, except confidential data which belongs to the banks. (fhp)