Business critical solutions firm, Bytes Universal Systems, has joined forces with Volante Technologies to launch a payments enabler for the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

According to a press statement, the payments enabler solution aims to provide software and services to help banks to convert to new clearing standards demanded by SADC.

The statement also notes that the solution will focus on low value and cross-border payments within the region.

The SADC payments enabler solution combines software from Volante with implementation and testing services from Bytes, the statement reads.

Mick Fennell, general manager Middle East and Africa at Volante Technologies, said, “Each bank that seeks to support the service must convert their current processing to manage these new payment message standards.”

“By providing software supporting all relevant message formats, validations, and message exception flows, along with the tools necessary to configure and integrate these processes with existing systems, our solution will help banks to launch their SADC payment service quickly and with a minimal disruption to their existing infrastructure,” said Fennel.

Over the coming weeks and months, Bytes plans running a series of workshops and roadshows throughout SADC to help those financial institutions that are interested in understanding how the payments enabler can help them.   

“For us, it’s all about lowering implementation costs and reducing project risks for those seeking to send and receive SADC payments” Mark Neethling (pictured), general manager, business solutions at Bytes Universal Systems added.

“We have worked tirelessly with Volante to create a series of repeatable services covering the design, configuration, deployment, and go live phases of a SADC payments conversion project. We have created pre-defined testing packs to address a key issue that normally impacts a migration to a new service. Our banking customers demand a quick time to market, and through our packaged services combined with Volante’s reliable and proven software, that’s what they’ll get,” Neethling said.