Phase 2 of GMEX Technologies’ project to implement the warehouse receipt system AvenirWRS at the Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa (ACE) in Malawi, is now live.
This latest project phase delivers warehouse receipts creation, management and financing. Associated activities include enhanced contact management and accounting functions for warehouse charges and fees. The solution also extends SMS messaging, documentation and auditing functionality.
The implementation follows the successful launch of the contact database functionality, in February in phase 1, allowing operators and agents (e.g. farmer cooperative societies, brokers etc.) to set-up and maintain a database of farmers who are interested in taking part in the warehouse receipt arrangements immediately or in the future. Phase 3 of the project will introduce electronic trading of warehouse receipts during Q3 2016. The new system integrates the functionality of the existing ACE systems and processes into a high performance, agile, scalable technology platform. In addition to the traditional warehouse receipt systems which tend to focus on the depository function, ACE has evolved systems and processes which are custom-designed for frontier markets integrating depository services with pricing, financing, trading and information vending solutions. Kristian Schach Møller (pictured), CEO of ACE, says: “ACE very pleased to be continuing to extend our services catering to the needs of small farmers enabling the growth and development in rural economies.” He added, “Our partnership with GMEX and Avenir is bringing world class technology to deliver an effective warehouse receipt solution providing proven, tangible benefits for poor farmers as they can better maximise their returns for the benefit of their families and the wider community.” Hirander Misra, CEO and Co-Founder of GMEX Group, says: “We are pleased that our strategy to offer our exchange business expertise and technology through the creation of sustainable local partnerships in Emerging Markets such as Malawi is proving to be successful.” He added, “We expect that ACE will become a template for other exchanges trading physical soft commodities across Africa and globally requiring an efficient warehouse receipts system and delivery mechanism.” Stuart Turner, CEO and Co-Founder of Avenir, says: “We are delighted the project to provide a cost effective, easily accessible automated soft commodity exchange solution for Malawi has been successful. This part of the project has run smoothly and we are looking forward to phase 3 and continuing our relationship with ACE and GMEX.”
