By Goddy Egene
Nigeria’s premier central counterparty, NG Clearing Limited has announced that it has signed an agreement with a leading software development firm, Mantissa Infotech Private Limited, for the development, implementation and maintenance of bespoke clearing and settlement technology for its operations.
NG Clearing Limited, had received an approval-in-principle from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in September 2020, to clear and settle exchange traded derivatives instruments.
Speaking on the agreement, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of NG Clearing Limited, Mr. Tapas Das, said: “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.
“The technology platform will support the clearing and settlement of derivative instruments across various asset classes i.e. futures and options contracts on indices, equity shares, commodities, currency, rates etc.
“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, having provided both the trading and the clearing & 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 Limited (MSE), Metropolitan Clearing Corporation of India Limited (MCCIL) 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.”
NG Clearing Limited is promoted by the Nigerian Stock Exchange and Central Securities Clearing System Plc along with key stakeholders like the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, Access Bank Plc, Consonance Kuramo Special Opportunities, Coronation Merchant Bank Limited, Greenwich Merchant Bank Limited, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, United Bank for Africa Plc and Association of Securities Dealing Houses in Nigeria.
