The New Zealand Debt Management Office (NZDMO) is looking to reboot its back-office with a “robust ‘industry leading’ technology platform”.
Tenders for the NZDMO job closed last Friday (March 6) with a number of local and global financial technology players understood to be interested.
“This will be the first stage towards selecting a single external service provider who can meet our requirements,” the NZDMO tender summary says.
According to the summary, the successful bidder will be responsible for upgrading NZDMO’s financial markets trade accounting and settlement services.
“[The NZDMO] has responsibility for managing the Crown’s debt, overall cash flows and interest-bearing deposits for the Treasury, and ensuring the Treasury can accurately account and settle its Financial Markets transactions,” the brief says.
The tender covers debt management, accounting services, funds transfer and clearance and exchange services, and, securities and commodities markets services
Sarah Vrede, acting NZDMO head, said the current in-house system – built out of Microsoft technology – has been in use for over a decade.
“While it does use old technology, it is stable and secure, as confirmed by annual audits on the system,” she said. “However, an external independent review recommended that the system should be upgraded/replaced.”
In its 2014 operating guidelines, the NZDMO lists Computershare Investor Services as registrar; Yieldbroker as the system provider for NZ government bond auctions; while the Reserve Bank-owned operation NZClear (formerly known as Austraclear) provides settlement services.
Vrede said the changes would not affect these external providers.
The NZDMO forecast gross bond issuance in the current financial year of about $8 billion and $7 billion per annum over the next few years. Outstanding government bonds should also peak at about $80 billion in 2017, according to an August 2014 NZDMO investor presentation.