Tourvest Financial Services, the company licensed to operate the American Express Foreign Exchange brand in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, has signed a five-year, fixed-term agreement to implement the GTS-Retail software from IMX Software, the global leader in currency trading and travel money technology.

Tourvest Financial Services is a wholly-owned subsidiary of leading South African tourism group, Tourvest Holdings, and supplies and exchanges currencies to inbound and outbound travelers, sells prepaid travel cards and operates as a major agent for Western Union money transfers. It has used IMX solutions for the past 20 years and decided to roll out IMX’s new generation GTS-Retail to strengthen regulatory compliance and sharpen the customer experience. Implementation started early in August and should be complete by end-March 2018.

GTS-Retail is a modern, easy-to-use, multi-language point of sale system enabling forex providers and banknote traders to serve customers quickly, while efficiently managing their business and inventory. Centralized administration and reporting provide a clear view of performance and ensure that trading, AML, KYC and other business-specific rules are enforced.

Says Marlize van der Schyff, Financial and IT Director at Tourvest Financial Services: “Regulators are expecting South African financial services companies, including forex bureaus, to constantly improve their reporting and monitoring standards. GTS-Retail will enable us to meet more stringent regulatory requirements while ensuring rapid transaction processing times and fast customer service.”

GTS-Retail is tailored to the needs of the South African market, with compliance modules for South African Reserve Bank FinSurv reporting as well as integration with the Financial Intelligence Centre’s goAML software for reporting of larger cash transactions, suspicious transactions and international fund transfers.

Tight integration between GTS-Retail and document readers and subscription to banknote and document verification services from International Reference Systems further speeds up business processes, improves data accuracy and reduces fraud and risk at the point of sale. When a teller scans a customer’s passport, the document will be verified for authenticity using text data recognition, Machine Readable Zone data, barcodes and other security checks.

Meanwhile, Western Union and MasterCard integration eliminates dual capture of transactions, and International Reference Systems’ banknote verification allows tellers to verify banknote security features for all currencies. In addition to these standard features, IMX will be developing a number of additional functions to cater for Tourvest’s unique business requirements.

Says Hennie Pretorius, General Manager at IMX Software: “We look forward to helping Tourvest roll out our platform to serve customers faster and improve process efficiencies across its business. GTS-Retail automates compliance and risk processes, allowing tellers to focus on engaging with the customer and maximizing the transaction value.”