Ghana's Central Securities Depository goes live with new platform from Montran
0
The new platform—now fully operational—unifies CSD Ghana's core post-trade services, including depository, settlement, registrar, and auction management, under a single robust and scalable system. This implementation enables seamless interaction with key stakeholders across the financial ecosystem, including the RTGS, Ghana Stock Exchange, Bloomberg, and GHIPSS, significantly enhancing efficiency, security, and interoperability.
"This go-live represents a strategic leap forward for Ghana's capital markets," said Joseph Oko Lartey, Chief Executive Officer of CSD Ghana. "The ability to offer real-time, integrated, and secure services not only benefits our local stakeholders but also strengthens our global competitiveness. We are proud to collaborate with Montran in delivering this transformation."
The new system replaces legacy infrastructure that had become increasingly fragmented and operationally limiting. With Montran's advanced architecture, CSD Ghana now delivers faster settlement cycles, improved liquidity management, and increased resilience to operational risks. The system also reinforces regulatory alignment and positions the institution to support new asset classes and services in the years ahead.
A key innovation in this go-live is the launch of CSD Ghana's new Investor Portal, which allows real-time access to investor portfolio data and instant onboarding of new accounts. This feature significantly enhances the user experience and enables more inclusive market participation.
"Going live with CSD Ghana is a significant milestone for Montran," said Miguel Espinoza, Head of Capital Markets at Montran. "Our shared vision of financial modernization is now a reality. This infrastructure empowers Ghana's capital markets with the agility, security, and transparency needed to thrive in a fast-evolving landscape."
This implementation reinforces CSD Ghana's role as a regional leader in post-trade services and a driving force in Africa's financial market evolution.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Trump hosts five African leaders as tariffs, aid cuts bite
WASHINGTON, July 9 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump meets with leaders from five African nations on Wednesday as the U.S. leader ramps up a trade war that threatens developing nations that depend on trade with the world's largest economy. Trump is hosting leaders from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal for a discussion and lunch at the White House, with the discussions to focus on business opportunities, a White House official said. Africa experts are waiting for Trump to announce dates for a broader summit with African leaders, possibly in September around the time of the United Nations General Assembly. This week's mini-summit marks the latest effort by successive U.S. administrations to counter perceptions of U.S. neglect of a continent where China has increasingly made economic inroads. Since Trump took office in January, his administration has hit Africa with steep cuts in foreign aid as well as a tariff war against U.S. trading partners. Trump did not visit Africa during his first term, though his wife, Melania, did. Some African politicians labeled Trump a racist in 2018 after he was reported to have described some immigrants from Africa and Haiti as coming from "shithole" countries. In May, Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with explosive false claims of white genocide and land seizures during a tense White House meeting. Wednesday's meeting was expected to focus on economics. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation said earlier in the day it would provide project development funding for the Banio Potash Mine in Mayumba, Gabon, helping Gabon reduce its dependence on imports. 'DFC's efforts not only benefit the countries and communities where they invest but also advance U.S. economic interests by opening new markets, strengthening trade relationships, and promoting a more secure and prosperous global economy,' said DFC head of investments Conor Coleman. Trump's government continues to send out letters notifying trading partners of higher tariff rates taking effect on August 1 and has launched a new front in his trade war against members of the BRICS group of developing countries. His administration has also axed huge swaths of U.S. foreign aid for Africa as part of a plan to curb spending it considers wasteful and focus on an "America First" agenda. Those cuts could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, research published by The Lancet medical journal showed last week. Senior U.S. officials have said that Washington wants to prioritize trade and investment over charity-based assistance and will focus on creating more opportunities for U.S. firms. All five countries invited have abundant natural resources, including manganese, iron ore, gold, diamonds, lithium and cobalt, which are essential for use in current technologies. China has made huge inroads in Africa in recent years, investing heavily across the continent, especially in resource extraction. But African Union officials question how Africa could deepen trade ties with the U.S. under what they called "abusive" tariff proposals and visa restrictions largely targeting travelers from Africa. The top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Ambassador Troy Fitrell, has dismissed allegations of unfair U.S. trade practices.


Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
US tariffs on South Africa set to hit white farmers Trump has embraced
CITRUSDAL, South Africa, July 9 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's threatened 30% tariff on South African exports is set to deal an economic blow to a community he has vocally and controversially championed: white farmers. Citing false claims that white South Africans are being persecuted, Trump has cut aid to the country, publicly berated its president in the Oval Office and invited Afrikaners - descendants of early European settlers - to come to the United States as refugees. But for white farmers who remain rooted in their homeland and aspire to keep making a living from the land, the tariffs due to come into effect on August 1 are an assault on those ambitions. "It doesn't make sense to us to welcome South African farmers in America and then the rest that stays behind ... to punish them," said Krisjan Mouton, a sixth-generation farmer in Western Cape province's citrus heartland. "It's going to have a huge impact," he said, standing among rows of trees heavy with navel oranges on his farm near the town of Citrusdal. "It's not profitable to export anymore to the USA." After a three-month pause, Trump escalated the global trade offensive he launched in April, announcing tariffs on more than a dozen countries on Monday, including South Africa. Its citrus fruit, along with wine, soybeans, sugar cane and beef, had previously benefited from duty-free access to the U.S. under the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act. Helped by that trade initiative, South Africa, the world's second-largest citrus exporter after Spain, generates $100 million annually from the U.S. market. The new tariff ends that preferential treatment. And with three-quarters of South Africa's freehold land white-owned, white farmers will face the immediate economic fallout though they will not be the only casualties. Boitshoko Ntshabele, chief executive of the Citrus Growers' Association of Southern Africa (CGA) said the levy will hurt all South African farmers and farm workers, no matter their race. "A 30% tariff would wreak havoc on communities that have, for decades, focused on producing specifically for the U.S. market," he said. Its location in the Southern Hemisphere means South Africa produces citrus at times of the year when the U.S. doesn't, with its exports giving U.S. consumers year-round access to fruit. While the United States accounts for only around 6% of South Africa's citrus exports, some farming areas produce specifically for the U.S. market. Redirecting produce grown for the U.S. to other markets is not simple, as size and plant health requirements vary from country to country. Nestled in a valley in Western Cape's rugged Cederberg mountains, Mouton's family farm employs 21 permanent workers, and nearly triple that number during peak picking season. The CGA has said about 35,000 jobs are at risk in Citrusdal alone, as the tariffs risk making South African citrus uncompetitive compared to fruit from Peru, Chile, and Australia. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said trade talks with Washington will continue and argued that the 30% rate was based on an inaccurate understanding of the two countries' trade. In the meantime though, the CGA wants to speed up an expansion of exports to new markets including China and India. High tariffs in some countries and stringent plant health requirements in the European Union, for example, make that a complicated prospect, however. Not far from Mouton's farm, workers are carrying on as usual, for now, sorting and packing fruit at the 14,000-square-metre Goede Hoop Citrus warehouse. But if the 30% levy remains in place, that won't last long, managing director Andre Nel told Reuters. "Farmers will go bankrupt. For sure there would be job losses within our sector," he said. "I don't even want to think about it." ($1 = 17.8568 rand)


Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Trump tariffs create national disaster for tiny Lesotho
MASERU, July 9 (Reuters) - When Limpho Lefalatsa first learned she had lost her job at a Lesotho garment factory after 12 years due to U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to hit her tiny African homeland with a crippling tariff on its exports, she was in shock. "I thought I was going insane. It made no sense," the 29-year-old said at her house in the capital Maseru. "When the truth started sinking in, I felt so helpless." Lefalatsa's monthly factory wage of around 3,000 rand ($168) had supported herself, sent her 12-year-old daughter to school and paid for the blood pressure medicine her elderly grandmother needs to survive. Now that income is gone, and she still does not understand why. She's not alone. When Trump announced tariffs on imports for nearly all of the United States' trading partners in April, the Southern African mountain kingdom of Lesotho was singled out for the highest rate: 50%. Lesotho officials were baffled, not least since their country, which Trump disparaged as a nation "nobody has ever heard of", was the poster child of a flagship U.S. programme aimed at helping poor African economies develop through trade. The Trump administration has defended the tariffs as reciprocal, saying that Lesotho charges 99% tariffs on U.S. goods. Lesotho officials say they do not know how the White House arrived at that figure. The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a written request for comment. Lesotho's textiles sector, its leading export industry, is heavily dependent upon the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act, a U.S. trade initiative that offers qualifying African nations duty-free access to the U.S. market. On the back of that preferential tariff treatment, Lesotho developed a textiles sector that, until now, was the biggest private employer with some 40,000 jobs and accounted for roughly 90% of manufacturing exports, according to Oxford Economics. Exports to the U.S. under AGOA, including Levi (LEVI.N), opens new tab and Wrangler jeans from a textile sector that largely employs women like Lefalatsa, make up a tenth of Lesotho's $2 billion gross domestic product. That now looks set to disappear. This week Lesotho declared a national state of disaster due to the "high rates of youth unemployment and job losses" caused by uncertainty surrounding the tariffs. "You can see there are no people here," said Teboho Kobeli, owner of Afri-Expo, which makes jeans for export, gesturing towards rows of unmanned sewing machines at his factory. While Trump suspended application of his tariff barrage for three months just days after his so-called "Liberation Day" announcement in order to give trading partners time to negotiate deals with Washington, in Lesotho the damage was already done. The simple prospect of a 50% tariff caused many U.S. importers to cancel orders, leading, in turn, to mass sector-wide layoffs. And what orders still exist now bear more risk than reward. "Employers ... are just scared of taking more orders lest they plunge themselves into costs they are not ready to service," independent political and economic analyst Lefu Thaela told Reuters. The White House has yet to announce its final tariff on imports from Lesotho. Trump's 90-day suspension was due to expire on Wednesday. But factory owners like Kobeli, who has dismissed 200 workers from his U.S.-focused production lines, fear the worst. "If we still have these high tariffs, it means we must forget about producing for the U.S. and go as fast as we can ... (looking for) other available markets," he said. A spokesperson for Lesotho's trade ministry declined to comment until the government receives official communication from the Trump administration. However, others, like retrenched garment worker Nteboheleng Hlapane, have a message for the U.S. president. "I just pray to God that he touches your soul," said the 37-year-old, who can no longer afford the inhaler her son needs to treat his asthma. "Think about other people ... They are suffering because of your selfishness, your cruelty." ($1 = 17.8465 rand)