t t mboweni : the challenge of employment equity with specific reference to transformation at the south african reserve bank address by mr t t mboweni, governor of the south african reserve bank, at the black management forum annual conference, durban, 13 october 2006. * * * the president of the black management forum, former presidents and executive members of the black management forum, members of the black management forum executive, ordinary members of the bmf, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, when we were approached by the bmf leadership to address this august gathering on challenges of employment equity with specific reference to the transformation process at the south african reserve bank, we were more than pleased to oblige and grabbed the opportunity with both hands primarily because the progress we have made at the bank since 1999 has been remarkable. this does not in any way imply that our current transformation milestones are a destiny already reached, but we thought that we could share with you how we have embraced transformation as a journey which will hopefully someday help us realise the desired south african end - state 1. when one takes into consideration that the bank comprised mainly, but not only, of afrikaner white males in technical and strategic decision making positions in 1998 at the bank, we are certain that all might concur that the road to transformation at the bank was paved with many serious challenges / obstacles and presented an extremely steep gradient of resistance. it is against this opening scene and milieu that we can lay claim that the progress made has been indeed remarkable and to some extent ( maybe ) exemplary. allow me to share with you the facts and figures of employment equity and transformation at the bank. this will entail a little walk back in the history of the bank ’ s workforce movements and composition, but the historic walk will serve as empirical support of the bank ’ s transformation and equity successes. a historically significant starting point would be the year 1994. in that year the bank ’ s total staff comprised 21 per cent blacks and 38 per cent females. the management levels, however, comprised 1 per cent blacks and 12 per cent females. when we joined this transformation journey after 1998 2, we had a workforce that, in total comprised 36 per cent blacks and 42 per cent females, but the management levels comprised only 13 per cent blacks and 19 per cent females. the strategic general management level comprised only 15 per cent blacks and 7 per cent females. thus the workforce composition of 1998 will effectively serve as the starting point of numerical transformation

the sadc rtgs system, formerly known as siress, was developed as a catalyst to support the regional financial integration agenda towards the realisation of sadc ’ s aim of facilitating trade and investment in the region. prior to the implementation of the 1 international standards organization page 3 of 10 sadc rtgs system, regional cross - border transactions were settled via correspondent banking arrangements, which are prone to counterparty risk, lags in the settlement of these transactions on a t + 1 or t + 2 basis, and short cut - off times. the system was implemented through a public - private partnership between central banks and the commercial banking industry. the role that other partners played in the project – partners like the finmark trust, the european union, the world bank, the bill and melinda gates foundation, and the international monetary fund ( imf ) – is also appreciated and valued. the system currently settles transactions for 82 participating banks drawn from 14 countries across the sadc region. since july 2013, it has settled over 1. 2 million cross - border transactions and a cumulative peak value of r5 trillion, which was reached in october 2018. a project is currently underway to replace the sadc rtgs platform with a solution based on modern technology, which will provide, among other things, multi - currency capabilities, flexible settlement windows per currency, and re - engineered business processes to support the possible future business needs that could utilise distributed ledger technology ( dlt ). vision 2025 it is imperative that we continue to build on our legacy in our quest to enhance the safety, efficiency and accessibility of the nps in a manner that promotes competition and minimises risk to the payments ecosystem. as outlined in vision 2025, we will pursue this objective by leveraging technological developments to extend the availability of digital payment services to all sectors of society while meeting domestic, regional and international requirements for the benefit of all members of south african society. the nps affects the lives of all south africans. essentially, it exists to serve the economy and, through it, the people of south africa. it is a crucial enabling factor for page 4 of 10 economic activity among consumers and businesses. payment systems can, for example, enable seamless links to public transportation. a recent study by visa titled the cashless cities : realising the benefits of digital payments 2 reveals that, should johannesburg reach a state where 100 % of transactions are digital, the city would gain just under us $ 500 million in net benefits cumulative