BSE revert to snail mail

Botswana Stock Exchange has resorted to the use of snail mail to send both the December 2012 and January 2013 e- statements to its customers instead of the much-fancied electronic system they recently embarked on.The statements the BSE sent via post contain combined transactions for the months of November and December 2012. BSE ended the year on a sad and embarrassing note when the operations of its arm, Central Securities Depository Botswana (CSDB) suffered a great setback with its expensive e-statement emailing system mixing-up clients’ statements before sending them out to wrong addresses.

The BSE is currently running around the clock to ensure not only do they win the investors’ confidence, but also to resolve the problem as soon as possible. It is BSE’s hope that they will overcome the problem that led to the organisation’s worst embarrassment since it was formally established 23 years ago. Records show that the BSE continues to be pivotal to Botswana’s financial system, and in particular the capital market, as an avenue on which government, quasi- government and the private sector can raise debt and equity capital.

It is said to date, the BSE is one of Africa’s best performing stock exchanges, averaging 24% aggregate return in the past decade. This has allowed the BSE to be the third largest stock exchange in terms of market capitalisation in Southern Africa. Although investors remain worried because the system failure has compromised the integrity of the CSD and by extension the entire market of the BSE, so far there is no evidence that shows investors intend to pull out.

However, investors eagerly await for an explanation on where this system sources its information since official information thus far states that the mix up of emailing of clients statements did not involve the ATS or CSD systems because the e-statement emailing system is completely separate from ATS and CSD systems. BSE has gone on record that, “The e-statement emailing system was developed, supplied and maintained by a local company called Open Systems”. Last year August, BSE installed a multibillion Automated Trading System (ATS).

The ATS replaced the open trading system with the aim to make the BSE more visible and trading more efficient. Prior to that BSE has been using a Central Securities Depository (CSD) since 2008 and this was upgraded alongside the implementation of the ATS. 
Millennium IT, part of the London Stock Exchange Group, installed the ATS after a BW P8.8 million contract.

Botswana Guardian investigation can reveal that in its bid to do damage control, the CSDB dispatched the second batches of emails to its clients within a month. The email reads: emailed statements will resume with the January 2013 batch of statements, which will be sent in the month of February 2013.” Recently the BSE sent an update emails to investors headlined- Update: Recall: E-Statement for the period 01/11/2012 - 30/11/2012.  The email in question reads, “Please be informed that the Central Securities Depository Botswana (CSDB) will not email any statements for December 2012.

All statements for December 2012 will be sent via post to your postal address that is registered with the CSDB. The statement that you will receive via post will contain combined transactions for the months of November and December 2012. The CSDB is currently working on resolving the problem that led to the mix-up of statements in the previous month. Therefore, emailed statements will resume with the January 2013 batch of statements, which will be sent in the month of February 2013.”