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UNCTAD’s Debt Management and Financial Analysis System (DMFAS)

Contents

I. INTRODUCTION 2

II. OVERVIEW OF DMFAS 5.3 FUNCTIONS 2

III. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF DMFAS 5.3 FUNCTIONS 5

A. Recording function 5 1. Types of agreements that can be registered in DMFAS 5 2. How is this information registered into DMFAS? 5

Reference files 6 General information 7 Tranche information 8 Series information 9 Commission information 10

B. Operating function 10 1. Mobilization of funds 10 2. Debt service 11 3. Historical data 12

C. Controlling and monitoring functions 12

D. Reporting function 13 1. Reports available in DMFAS 13 2. Libraries of reports 14 3. Categories of reports 15 4. More on user-defined reports… 16 5. Exporting reports to Excel 17

E. Analytical function 18 1. Projections based on outstanding and present value calculations 18 2. Interface with the Debt Sustainability Model (DSM+)of the World Bank 18 3. Other analytical features 18

IV. TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS 19

A. Flexible interface 19 1. Language flexibility 19 2. Facilities for translating interface elements 19 3. User-defined fields 19

B. Support to other information systems 19

C. Security 19

D. Latest Oracle technology: Oracle 10G 20

E. DMFAS Helpdesk 20

V. DOCUMENTATION AND TRAINING 20

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I. Introduction What is DMFAS? UNCTAD’s Debt Management and Financial Analysis System (DMFAS) is software designed to help countries manage their external and domestic public debt, including securities. DMFAS monitors debt obligations such as government and government-guaranteed debt, as well as on-lending operations and grants. It can also be used to monitor private non-guaranteed debt. DMFAS is a Microsoft Windows™-based system; its general user-friendliness helps its users become quickly operational. It can be run on a stand-alone PC or on a network and can be installed on most available operating and network systems. DMFAS uses Oracle RDBMS to simplify linkages to other financial software applications. DMFAS offers fully integrated maintenance procedures and powerful safety and security features. Its design allows for easy customisation and adaptation in accordance with the needs and preferences of each client institution. Who uses DMFAS? DMFAS is installed in national (or subnational) debt management offices, usually located in the Central Bank and/or the Ministry of Finance; users are debt officers, debt managers and generally all officials involved with the management of the country’s public debt. It has so far been installed in 66 low and middle-income countries and in around 100 institutions. DMFAS is currently available in Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish. State of the art software DMFAS is regularly enhanced so that it remains current with, and helps establish, best practice in debt management. New versions and updates take into account the general evolution of the financial markets as well as developments in information technology. DMFAS 5.3 is, therefore, the result of technical and functional enhancements required for modern debt-management software. For instance, DMFAS 5.3 allows debt managers to produce debt statistics in accordance with the requirements of the External Debt Statistics Guide: Guide for Compilers and IMF’s General Data Dissemination System.

II. Overview of DMFAS 5.3 Functions DMFAS is designed to satisfy three distinct debt-management needs:

• The day-to-day operational needs of the debt manager;

• The aggregate statistical requirements of the debt office; and

• The analytical needs of the policymaker. It does so by providing recording, operating, controlling and monitoring, reporting and analytical functions. These functions are available through DMFAS main menu.

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DMFAS main menu follows the typical operational life cycle of a debt instrument.

Contract informationand

loan terms

Administration

Loan negotiation,Signature of loan

contract

Real drawings

Mobilize

Payment ofprincipal and

interest

Service

Reporting on thecountry's debt

Report Analysis

Debt Strategy

LOAN LIFE CYCLE

DMFAS MAIN MENU

REPORTING ANALYSIS

The debt and other instruments details are registered in the Administration section and, based on the contract information, amortization tables are calculated and initial drawing estimates made. The Administration section also contains a Reference files menu where the user enters information on daily exchange rates, variable interest rates, commercial interest reference rates, budget line identification numbers, etc. as well as creditors/debtors and other participants to the agreements.

As disbursements or subscriptions take place, these will be registered into the Mobilize section of DMFAS. This section may also, upon the user’s request, be programmed to print drawing requests automatically. Thereafter, all transactions related to the servicing of debt instruments, including operations on arrears, penalty interest, rescheduling, swaps, etc., are recorded in the Service section. The service section contains links to budget lines. The automatic registry of operations function enables the user to create blocks of payments, arrears, rescheduled arrears or write-offs for a given subset of debt instruments.

To ensure consistency among data for a particular debt instrument, DMFAS executes a number of automatic controls. Users can also produce different validation reports to check the data, using the user-defined report facilities in the Report section of DMFAS. Debt managers can also produce a large number of reports for monitoring purposes, using DMFAS Report facilities.

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After data validation, the database should contain reliable information that debt officers can use for their reporting needs. DMFAS Report section meets both the internal and external reporting needs of debt officers. For example, DMFAS supports the production of Forms 1 and 2 of the Debtor Reporting System (DRS) that the World Bank requires from its borrowing countries. DMFAS is also capable of generating a wide range of standard and customized reports, and data can be transferred easily to Excel and in HTML format.

Once the database has been loaded with information from loan, bond and grant contracts, DMFAS becomes a very powerful tool. As the software processes huge amounts of information on a debt, more time and energy can be deployed on analytical tasks. The Analysis section enable debt managers to calculate projections based on outstanding and on total commitment as well as present values of future debt service obligations. They can quickly analyze the impact on the country’s overall future debt burden resulting from hypothetical changes in financial markets. DMFAS makes debt service calculations showing how the total of debt service obligations would be affected by taking on a proposed loan, and projects the impact of borrowing decisions of various entities on a country’s global debt profile. The DMFAS installation package also includes the World Bank’s Debt Sustainability Model (DSM+) which lets debt managers perform further sophisticated macro-economic and balance-of-payment analysis.

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III. Detailed description of DMFAS 5.3 Functions

A. Recording function

1. Types of agreements that can be registered in DMFAS DMFAS 5.3 has facilities to register the following types of agreements: Loans. The software can record all loan-type contracts, including revolving credits and syndi-cated loans. It also facilitates the registration of loans with common characteristics granted to local governments or other subnational entities. DMFAS can store quantitative information (such as financial terms) and qualitative information (such as notes for specific comments or memorandum items, like the type of legal clauses in the contract). Bonds. The term “bond” is used by DMFAS in its generic sense to cover government “papers”, promissory notes, treasury bills, notes, bonds, – eurobonds that is, short-, medium- and long-term obligations. The bonds module is designed to handle typical bond concepts such as yields, discounts, average price, capitalized interest, as well as bi-monthly and weekly payments. Grants. The module for registration of grants contains the same facilities as the loans module, except for repayment conditions. Projects. This facility permit easy identification of individual projects and their relationship to debt instruments and grants financing them, as well as the individual disbursements related to them. On-lent loans. The software can record on-lent loans and their relationship with the original loan. General agreements. The facility permits the user to register frame agreements which are linked to several individual credits (and/or grants) and to link these agreements to the individual loans or grants arising from them. Reorganization agreements. DMFAS can link bilateral loans with the relevant “Agreed Minutes” and is designed to provide supporting data for reorganization negotiations (particularly for Paris Club negotiations), to facilitate recording of the reorganized terms received, and to facilitate identification and reporting of reorganized transactions.

2. How is this information registered into DMFAS? DMFAS captures financial terms of individual credits as specified in each loan or bond contract. The characteristics to be entered include, among others, principal terms, interest terms and commission terms. On the basis of this information, the system automatically calculates estimated disbursements and amortization tables. Loan (or bond) information is entered on three levels, General information, Tranches (or Series for bonds) and Commissions, in the Administration section. Each loan/bond has one general information

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section and at least one tranche/series section. Nevertheless, before registering any agreement, basic information needs first to be entered in DMFAS reference files.

The Loans module

Tranches

Estimated Drawings Interest TermsPrincipal Terms

Amortization Table

General Information Commissions

The Bonds module

Series

EstimatedSubscriptions

Interest TermsPrincipal Terms

Amortization Table

General Information Commissions

Reference files Reference files contain detailed information which can be refer to from many DMFAS modules. They include both essential and optional data about:

• The Participants (debtors, creditors, etc.) in the different agreements. The system requires the availability of a set of information on each one of the participants (for example, institution type, country of residence, contact data, etc.).

• Participants’ Bank accounts, which can be useful when preparing banking transactions.

• Daily Exchange rates. These rates are used by DMFAS in calculations such as real drawings and debt service operations. Scripts are available for downloading the official exchange rates published in a number of websites on a daily basis.

• Common interest rates, which are floating interest rates that DMFAS uses for interest calculations in other modules. They can also be used for projection purposes.

• Commercial interest reference rates (CIRRs), used for present value calculations. CIRRs are published by the OECD.

• Euro National Currency Units exchange rates, so that DMFAS can convert operations from national currency units to euros.

• Historical Exchange Rates, for Asian Development Fund loans.

• Interest rate groups and Maturity groups. The user to customize the range of these loan attributes for selection and sorting needs.

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• Funds related to revolving credit and local government debt.

• Budget lines, which are useful in the disbursement and debt-servicing processes, as required. In other words, budget lines refer to the budget account numbers that are used to service the different debt instruments.

General information For any loan agreement, it is necessary to fill in the General Information window where all the basic information about the agreement, such as different references, the signature date and the availability date, is recorded. The loan’s tranche structure and participants (borrowers, lenders, guarantors, beneficiaries, etc.) are also defined at this level.

The loan’s general information is summarized in the Loan Information Sheet. DMFAS 5.3 incorporates a classification and coding system which is compliant with new requirements in the field of debt statistics as well as with internationally accepted standards. Some of the codes used for the classification of debt instruments are selected in the General Information window, for example, the debt source, the public guarantee, the debtor category, lender category, etc.

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Among the immediate benefits, the new classification and coding system gives the debt officer the ability to produce reports that adhere to World Bank standards and the IMF’s General Data Dissemination Standards (GDDS) and which are in accordance with the IMF’s External Debt Statistics: Guide for Compilers and Users. Furthermore, the loan module has facilities for:

• Recording secondary market shares and share movements for syndicated loans in order to report the exposure of each member of the syndicate at a given point in time;

• Maintaining records of amendments to loan agreements;

• Maintaining records of the loan status throughout the lifetime of the loan (active, fully paid, cancelled, written-off, etc.);

• Recording currency pool loans (World Bank and regional development bank loans); linking loans to specific agreed minutes, general agreements, projects and budget lines;

• Recording customized information through user-defined fields. These fields allow the debt officers to cater to country-specific loan details that can then be used as selection and sorting criteria when generating reports.

The bond module is similar to the loan module: all the basic information such as the different references, the issue date and the issue end date is recorded in the General Information window. The bond’s series structure and participants (issuer, subscribers, guarantors, beneficiaries, etc.) are also defined at this level. From the point of view of debt, bonds are debt securities with an original maturity of over one year. They are usually traded in organized financial instrument markets. Bonds usually give the holder an unconditional right to money income that is either fixed or variable and determined contractually. Except for perpetual bonds, bonds also provide the holder with an unconditional right to a fixed sum as repayment of principal on a specified date or dates. In DMFAS the term “bond” is used as a generic term covering government “papers”, promissory notes, treasury bills, notes, bonds or eurobonds; that is, short-, medium- and long-term obligations. Tranche information What is a tranche? In a loan, a tranche is a set of disbursements, the repayment of which is under its own specific financial terms. Tranches represent the distinct parts of a loan as defined by the creditor in the detailed payment schedules sent to the debtor. In DMFAS a “tranche” is defined as an autonomous entity with its own currency, drawings, principal payment schedule and interest terms: each tranche has its own amortization table. Furthermore, a tranche can have its own participants. Using this information, DMFAS automatically calculates amortization tables. What are they used for? Tranches allow more accurate recording of loans in several currencies and with several interest rates. Multilateral borrowing, for instance, often has several currency tranches under the same credit. These

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different tranches may or may not have the same rate of interest. Each currency will therefore be registered as a separate tranche with its own amortization schedule. DMFAS captures specific floating interest rates for the tranches. These rates are either entered into the common exchange rate file for the entire debt portfolio in the system or they are entered as characteristics of a loan tranche. Because different creditors may be using different interest rates for the same currency on the same date, DMFAS allows you to record creditor-specific interest rates. Tranche management options DMFAS offers three different options for managing tranches manually or automatically:

• One tranche only

• Unknown number of tranches

• Multiple known tranches

“One tranche only” is the most frequently used option for managing tranches since most loans contain only one tranche in which drawings and repayments are always expressed in the loan currency.

Example of a Tranche Information Sheet which summarizes all the information registered at the tranche level Series information In DMFAS the concept of “series” is similar to the one of tranche: it is an autonomous entity with its own principal repayment schedule, its own currency and its own interest terms. More precisely, a series is a group of certificates of indebtedness belonging to the same bond and sharing the same attributes and repayment conditions. In addition, it may have its own participants.

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Example of a Series Information Sheet which summarizes all the information registered at the series level Commission information Finally, loan/bond commissions and fees are recorded in a separate window since you can enter this information at both the loan/bond and tranche/series levels.

B. Operating function DMFAS records all types of individual transactions: drawings, also called disbursements, (registered in the Mobilize section) and repayments of principal, payment of interest and commissions, etc. (registered in the Service section).

1. Mobilization of funds The section Mobilize is for registering drawings and subscriptions. DMFAS can handle drawings in the same (or different) currency as that of the tranche and registers the equivalent value in the loan currency, in the tranche currency, and in the local currency as well as in the euro and U.S.dollar. For validation all the figures are checked for consistency against

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the exchange rates registered in the corresponding files. A drawing can also be related to a project or a program allocation. A feature in DMFAS allows to update or roll forward estimated drawings up to a date specified by the user: the Roll forward estimated drawings facility. This feature improves projections by eliminating estimated drawings scheduled prior to this date.

2. Debt service The Debt service operations are handled in the Service section. There is an option dealing with principal and interest and two other options for commissions and penalty interest. All debt service operations can be entered and/or followed in various currencies: local, tranche, loan, effective, euro, U.S. dollar and SDR. The main functionalities of the Service section are the following:

• The debt-service operations are ordered by scheduled date, and the field status informs the user of the current stage in the servicing process for the maturity concerned (scheduled, waiting, in arrear, paid, written-off, rescheduled, etc.).

• The generation of the list of debt service maturities is based on the amortization table. The user will

check this list and take appropriate action for maturities with a waiting status (those for which a payment is due): this means recording a payment, a rescheduling, a write-off, a swap or confirming the existence of an arrear. DMFAS also offers a utility for the automatic recording of debt service operations, like payments, arrears or rescheduled arrears and write-offs, for a given set of loans or bonds.

• The accumulation of arrears may lead to the accumulation of a stock of Penalty interest due to different creditors. DMFAS can generate reports displaying the details of penalty interest for each arrear and handles payment, rescheduling and written-off operations on penalty interest.

• This section is also where Budget period allocations are registered. The system allows entry of budget allocations for comparison with actual payments. The user defines the budget periods and loads the budget line identifications and the allocation to each budget line. The allocation is then linked to tranches and individual transactions, so that DMFAS automatically monitors the allocation against the accumulated amount of actual transactions during the specified budget period. A warning is issued if the sum of actual transactions exceeds the allocation. Therefore, the budgeting of payments may be monitored on loans’ or bonds’ interest, principal and commissions, and can easily be adjusted to the needs of individual countries.

• The Adjustment factors used in some of the currency pool loans from multilateral institutions are registered here.

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• The Payment order, a country-specific facility, can also be either printed or electronically transmitted from this option. If there is a linkage with a budget system, the payment order can be processed through the corresponding budget allocations.

3. Historical data A public debt software should be able to show and calculate historical data. Loading the information about the individual transactions in order to fulfill this requirement can be very tedious and, in some cases, an overwhelming task. DMFAS, in order to overcome this problem, permits the user to load balances on a loan-by-loan and tranche-by ranche basis at a given date (the user-defined DMFAS cut-off date). The Historical amount balances will include total principal repaid, total interest paid, etc., at the cut-off date. This will allow the system to calculate, at any date after the cut-off date, stocks and flows at any level of aggregation.

C. Controlling and monitoring functions The first controlling function is on the data accuracy and data validation. Once data is entered, it will be updated regularly or deleted, as the case may be. To ensure consistency among data for a particular debt instrument, a certain number of controls have been incorporated in the system. By means of a number of error messages, the user will correct and validate data. The user may also produce different reports to check the data for correctness.

The software can also produce a large number of reports for the purpose of control and monitoring the debt-management operations. For example, DMFAS enables debt officers to:

• Produce reports of payments falling due in the next month, in order to pay them on time;

• Produce reports where loans are selected by economic sector, type of creditor, financing type, etc., that can be used for controlling ceilings on outstanding debt or debt servicing;

• To identify loans where debt service is in arrears and calculate penalty payments.

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D. Reporting function All the data recorded in DMFAS is ultimately aimed at producing reports that are accurate, complete and compliant with standards. To this end, DMFAS offers extensive features that simplify debt officers’ reporting tasks. DMFAS reports are multi-purpose in that they address three categories of user needs: internal, external and control.

• Internal: debt officers need to produce reports about debt in the specific formats required by national authorities and other related users.

• External: debt officers need to produce reports in the specific formats required by international organizations and that adhere to an international standardization of statistics.

• Control: DMFAS users need to produce reports for the purposes of data validation (see previous section).

1. Reports available in DMFAS Reports are created from DMFAS Report section which is divided into two parts: DMFAS Standard Reports and User-defined Reports.

DMFAS Standard Reports are predefined reports delivered with the system. These are reports that have already been created by the central team of the Debt Management – DMFAS Programme. User-defined Reports are reports created and generated by the DMFAS users in any given country. A user-defined report can be based on a DMFAS standard report. This means that users can copy a DMFAS standard report and then modify it. The levels for DMFAS Standard Reports are illustrated below.

Standard Reports

Operational Reports

Analytical & Management Reports

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Operational Reports include reports on loans, bonds, projects, general agreements, grants and reference files. For example, for loan instruments users can produce a loan information sheet, a loan account statement, an amortization table and so on. These reports can be generated whenever users need to check that they have recorded all data correctly for a debt instrument. Among these reports are the control reports, also known as Data Validation reports. These are predefined reports, developed by the central team of the Debt Management – DMFAS Programme. Generated in Oracle Browser, these reports allow users to check the accuracy and consistency of the data recorded. Analytical & Management Reports consist of reports on debt status, the statistical bulletin, reorganization, World Bank reporting, and general agreements involving revolving credit. A number of standard reports are already available in the DMFAS libraries delivered with the system: 8 in the debt status library and 61 in the statistical bulletin library.

Some of the reports available in the DMFAS Statistical Bulletin library. The World Bank Reporting option lets users generate Forms 1 and 2 of the Debtor Reporting System (DRS) and send them electronically to the World Bank.

2. Libraries of reports DMFAS offers libraries for use with reports. These libraries are secure repositories in which users can store reports for future use. The libraries available in DMFAS are specialized. There are thus libraries for reports relating to data validation, debt status, the statistical bulletin and reorganization/data validation. Some of these libraries are delivered with the system; they are made up of DMFAS standard reports. Other libraries have already been named but are empty: users can fill them in by creating their own reports through user-defined reports.

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3. Categories of reports Reports available in DMFAS fall into these categories:

• Predefined reports without parameters

• Predefined reports with parameters

• User-defined reports

Predefined reports without parameters These reports are “hard-coded” which means that the user cannot change their format in any way. These operational reports display all the data available relating to one or more selected debt instruments. Therefore, no parameters are required. The Amortization table is one example of this type of report. Predefined reports with parameters The format for these reports is also hard-coded and they display all the data available relating to one or more selected debt instruments. However, as they may contain large volumes of data, the user must specify one or several parameters. The parameters can be the report period to be covered, the calculation date, the report currency, etc. User-defined reports With user-defined reports, the user can design its own reports by entering specific parameters. He can select from a wide range of debt totals or aggregates relating to debt operations (stocks or flows) such as drawings, debt service operations, etc.; projections, for example on drawings and the debt service; the debt outstanding; present value; accrued interest; commitments; and penalty interest. The user can also combine aggregates with general information on debt instruments, for example the creditor name, the signature date, etc. There are two ways of creating user-defined reports, both of which entail use of Oracle Browser or Query Builder. The DMFAS application is built on top of an Oracle database that stores all the debt-related data you recorded. Within DMFAS, the user can therefore use applications such as Oracle Browser (or Query Builder) to search for data recorded in this database. An advanced user can even work with Oracle Browser directly.

DMFASOracle Browser/Query Builder

(LOAN_TRANCHES andGRANTS views)

Oracle Browser/Query Builder(all tables and views)

ADVANCED USER

USER

Data recorded in DMFAS is organized into tables and views such as, for example, LOAN_TRANCHES, Participants, Projects, disbursements and debt service operations. Over 250 tables exist in DMFAS. While creating user-defined reports with DMFAS, the views the user can work with in Browser include LOAN_TRANCHES (for loans and bonds) and the GRANTS views as well as two specific views for syndicated loans. When creating reports with Oracle Browser/Query Builder, the user can use all views and tables.

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4. More on user-defined reports… To create a user-defined report, the user will first define a set of parameters, such as such as the currency, the level of aggregation and the period:

• Reports can be produced in local currency, tranche currency, U.S. dollar, euros, SDRs or even in various currencies.

• They can be expressed in units, thousands or millions.

• Four formats are available for generating user-defined reports. These formats determine the position of aggregates and sub-periods in the rows and columns of the report. For certain formats, the report can contain up to 12 columns as well as express the value of a given column as a percentage of the entire column.

Main windowBasic information about the report: name, title, currency, etc.

Sub-windows

User-defined Reports

Format AggregatesPeriodicity Subtotals

Data setsOracle Browseror Query Builder

Periods

Then, among the 15 types of aggregates available, the user will select the type of aggregate and the related debt totals required to produce the desired report.

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Once the user has created a report, it is stored by DMFAS so that the user can retrieve it in order to print it out with the original or new data, as well as to modify its format if needed. Below is an example of a projection report generated in DMFAS.

5. Exporting reports to Excel The user can export the user-defined reports created as ASCII files in DMFAS to Microsoft Excel. The exported report files preserve their original formatting. In Excel the user can then benefit from the wide-range of formatting and layout features available in the application.

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E. Analytical function

1. Projections based on outstanding and present value calculations The analysis module has been specifically designed to calculate projections based on outstanding, and the present value amount using CIRRs as the rates of discount, of a debt portfolio. Because debt indicators based on the nominal value of a debt are static, they may not exactly reflect a country’s underlying solvency. Unlike nominal value, present value takes into account the terms and the concessionality of a debt portfolio while reflecting the costs of servicing it in “today’s money”. Debt indicators based on present value are a more appropriate measure to apprehend a country’s solvency and its debt servicing situation. Present value allows debt officers to more easily compare debt portfolios between creditors by eliminating the effects of concessionality. The module on projections based on outstanding is useful when the user needs to calculate:

• The amount of interest due in the near future (for example, the amount of interest to be paid in the next month), the cash flow needs of the central bank; etc.

• Future debt service payments for a loan in which he foresees a cancellation of the undisbursed amount.

• A debt’s present value for the purposes of analysis such as in the framework of the HIPC initiative.

This module enables the user to choose between different parameters and calculation methods (the pro-rata and the truncation methods) of particular interest to produce and compare different scenarios for the debt-sustainability analysis of HIPC.

2. Interface with the Debt Sustainability Model (DSM+)of the World Bank An interface has been created between DMFAS and DSM+, which is a tool designed to help officials analyze the external financing requirements of a country and to quantify the effects of debt-relief operations or new borrowing. This interface provides the DMFAS user with the means to export data from the DMFAS system for subsequent import into DSM+.

3. Other analytical features DMFAS system also provides analytical support for debt managers by, for example:

• Facilitating easy registration of potential new debt and analyzing the effect of these new debts on the future debt-service pattern;

• Permitting easy simulations to determine the effect of interest rate fluctuations and exchange rate variations over a period of time;

• Calculating and giving information on detailed penalty interest from the scheduled date of a maturity registered as an arrear to a given date; and

• Calculating accrued interest. DMFAS allows debt officers to generate automatically such information, at the end of the previous month, for use by other departments, including the accounting unit.

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IV. Technical characteristics

A. Flexible interface

1. Language flexibility DMFAS is language independent. This means that its textual components (such as messages or menu names) have been externalized from the system itself. DMFAS 5.3 is available in Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish. At any time during a DMFAS session, the user can easily switch from one language to another. This feature is particularly important for countries operating the system in languages that they cannot use for reporting to the World Bank and other international organizations or creditors. For example, an institution working in a Russian-speaking environment can work with DMFAS in Russian and yet switch to English for reporting to the World Bank.

2. Facilities for translating interface elements DMFAS allows an institution to modify the translation of interface elements so that they suit the terminology used in the country or institution. These elements include labels, field messages and lists of values. In addition, the code file of the system is divided into standard and user-defined codes. This allows country specific customization of codes, such as Location, Economic Sector codes, etc.

3. User-defined fields DMFAS windows provide user-defined fields, i.e. fields that can be customized according to the institution’s needs. They offer greater flexibility for customizing a DMFAS installation. DMFAS provides three types of user-defined fields: user codes, user fields and user dates.

B. Support to other information systems DMFAS 5.3 can be linked with other softwares. It may therefore provide debt data for other information systems, such as those dealing with balance of payments, budget, public and/or central bank accounting, government revenue and expenditure, currency management, etc.

C. Security Today more than ever, security is one of the most critical issues faced by all information systems throughout the world. Most organizations have already undertaken significant measures to protect the confidentiality of their databases and control access to sensitive data. DMFAS security feature addresses these vital concerns by offering a safe and secure framework for a country’s data. Yet another advantage of this feature is that it clearly organizes the responsibilities and roles

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of DMFAS users. For any user or user group, the manager can determine the access rights that are appropriate and subsequently expand or restrict them according to its institution’s needs. For example, a manager can assign loans, bonds and grants exclusively to individual users or groups. In addition, a new feature for password management has been introduced.

D. Latest Oracle technology: Oracle 10G DMFAS 5.3 supports Oracle 9i and 10G, which is the latest RDBMS released by Oracle. Among the many features it offers are:

• the ability to run a single database on a cluster of servers

• new technology to reduce downtime thus allowing maintenance procedures on online databases

• facilities to reduce disk fragmentation and improve applications performance

• tools to define both e-mails and pager alerts for common database events

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E. DMFAS Helpdesk The DMFAS helpdesk offers extensive support in the use of DMFAS. The helpdesk provides timely and reliable advice and assistance on a wide range of functional and technical issues in response to any issue users may have.

V. Documentation and Training A comprehensive set of documentation is available for DMFAS 5.3. It includes:

• A comprehensive User’s Guide, with its supplements and updates;

• A basic tutorial “Introduction to DMFAS” and an advanced tutorial on how to register an Asian Development Fund loan in DMFAS.

• A Debt and DMFAS Glossary;

• A Database Administrator’s Manual; and

• An Installation Guide (for Oracle 8i, 9i and 10G).

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In addition to the basic training on debt, the Debt Management - DMFAS Programme offers the following training modules relating to DMFAS:

Module Description

DMFAS 5.3 Covers new features such as bonds, reorganization, the new classification and coding system, AsDF loans, local government debt and revolving credit. It can last from 5 to 10 days.

Data validation Provides techniques for data control. It is aimed at debt managers seeking to set up quality control procedures for use with databases and reports.

Debt statistics seminar

Explains how to compile and analyze international debt statistics and how to report them to international organizations.

Debt sustainability workshop

Teaches the concepts for achieving and measuring a debt sustainability analysis. It explains how to export debt data from DMFAS to DSM+ and then use DSM+ to analyze the debt portfolio for its sustainability.