On July 9th, 2011, South Sudan became the newest country on the planet. The South Sudanese government setup a unique South Sudanese pound and a central banking system. Alice Liu’s lecture and the two videos email to us illustrated the complexity of a country’s banking system, and thus creating this complex system in a new country must be difficult to say the least. After doing some extensive research (a robust Google search), I was able to find information on how this new South Sudanese government is going about creating and maintaining a central banking system. As in most every other central banking system in the world, the Bank of Southern Sudan (BSS) uses modern electronic technology to help keep the banking system network connected and operational. A was able to locate the document of policies that Southern Sudan models its banking system off of (http://www.bankofsouthernsudan.org/docs/THE%20CENTRAL%20BANK%20OF%20SUDAN%20POLICIES%202008.pdf), and was able to find several examples of how modern mobile media is propelling a country with out of date infrastructure into the 21st century.
First off, the BSS is attempting to teach its employees how to use the lasted electronic networking systems and programs by having them use Facebook and other social media sites. In an attempt to learn from other systems that have already modernized within Africa, the central banks of South Sudan are reaching out to others through Facebook in hopes of learning the best and most efficient banking models.
The BSS is also trying to modernize its banking system through the establishment of a Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) System. An RTGS allows for the transferring of money from one bank to another in real time. In other comparably poor nations, the transferring of money from one bank to another may take several days if not weeks to be fulfilled, and often the transferring has to be done by someone either on foot or by car, bus, train, etc. This process is very time consuming and leads to the populace of an underdeveloped nation being less productive with the limited amount of time in a day. With RTGS systems, ATMs are being put up all across South Sudan according to the website of the Bank of Southern Sudan (http://bankofsouthernsudan.org/home.php).
Through modern electronic communication technology, the banking system of South Sudan has also setup a Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication or SWIFT network. A SWIFT network is a internationally connected messaging system for financing. Messages are able to be passed through the network to different banks as well as other financial institutions. Through a SWIFT network, a country’s currency exchange rate is much easier and more reliable to establish. With independence has also come a new currency for South Sudan. The South Sudanese Pound currently has a one-to-one exchange rate with the Sudanese Pound, which is the currency of the country that South Sudan used to be a part of. A “currency war” between Sudan and South Sudan has begun according to the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14267746) in the face of the original Sudanese government recently issuing out a new currency to its people. The International Business Times has estimated that the South Sudanese Pound will have about a three-to-one exchange rate with the dollar in the beginning. None of the exchange rate calculations for the South Sudanese Pound could be accomplished if the BSS did not put in the effort to establish a SWIFT network.
The creations of these electronic technological banking operations (RTGS and SWIFT), which we might find to be basic in this country (USA #1), are becoming the backbone of the world’s newest banking system.
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