Internationally renowned debt management software used in over 60 countries

Over 60 countries have since used the Debt Recording and Management System (CS-DRMS) to record, monitor and analyse their external debt, totalling more than US$500 billion, as well as domestic loans, liabilities, securities and grants. This includes over 15 countries and territories from outside of the Commonwealth, such as Afghanistan, China, Kosovo and most recently Liberia.

A French version of the software is also available under a partnership with the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. This is currently being used by eight countries, of which the latest to sign up is the Central African state of Equatorial Guinea.

Technical assistance is consistently offered to debt managers in how to use the software to its full potential. The Secretariat’s assistance cover various aspects of debt management, from debt data recording and compilation of debt statistics to assistance on formulation of debt management strategies and institutional arrangements.

CS-DRMS has been updated intermittently in order to keep up with the changing needs of its user countries.

Keeping with the times:

• At the turn of the century, the functionalities of CS-DRMS were expanded to record and manage domestic debt, after it eclipsed external debt as a source of borrowing in many developing countries. 
• In response to a desire from debt managers to gain a greater understanding about the costs and risks associated with their respective debt strategies, CS-DRMS was equipped with a powerful analytical tool which helps them study their debt portfolio effectively.
• In April 2008, CS-DRMS was further enhanced to include a securities auctioning system, which aims to help countries to develop their domestic capital market.

Banking in Belize and Botswana

Statistical Officer for the Central Bank of Belize, Karen Carbis, credits the software’s success to it being user-friendly and having readily available reference materials in hardcopy, and to hotline support via the web.

The Central Bank of Belize has been using the system for 21 years and supports the Ministry of Finance, which has overall responsibility for external debt management, by managing the CS-DRMS database for all external, domestic and private sector debt.

Ms Carbis said: “We are now in a better position of having a hands-on understanding of the scope of our debt, which helps us to manage our debt portfolio in a more effective manner.”

She continued: “The most significant improvement is that the Bank can now accurately find out our outstanding debt at any given time through the effective and efficient tracking and forecasting.”

At the Bank of Botswana, its Deputy Director Matthew Wright said that while the country only has a small external debt portfolio, supervision of their private sector has become more complicated over the years.

“We are actively involved in trying to upgrade our standards of statistics collection. It [CS-DRMS] is used to supplement our balance of payments survey. While our survey does provide the facility to cover loans, CS-DRMS provides a superior method because you can make projections simply.”

Afghanistan pushes back debt mountain

To avoid building up unsustainable levels of national debt the Afghan Government has now installed the pioneering financial software system for managing public and external private sector debt.

“It will assist us,” says Abdul Rahim Jamil, Head of the Ministry’s Debt and Asset Management Unit, “in reviewing whether the country’s debt remains sustainable and can be serviced under different circumstances or not.”

The installation also helps the country meet a crucial qualifying condition for assistance under the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, which aims to ensure no poor country is struggling with debt it can not contain.

Mr Rahim Jamil says he is impressed with a number of its features, including its “user-friendliness” and ability to handle debts in numerous currencies.

Importantly, he observes, the adoption of CS-DRMS means his team can replace the simpler software programmes they had used previously for the task of managing public debt.

“Before we were using Excel spreadsheets to prepare our debt reports and projections which led to a number of errors,” he explains. “Working in Excel was very time consuming, but now using CS-DRMS we can get our desired reports and projections within just a few clicks.”

“Personally, I am impressed with the pre-defined reports in the system,” he adds. “It gives a number of reports with a high degree of flexibility. In addition to these pre-defined reports, we can create customised reports according to our need.”

With CS-DRMS now installed and in use, Mr Rahim Jamil and his team can provide reliable and timely information on the country’s debt portfolio as well as publish consecutive quarterly reports in line with international standards on public debt.