In The News

SIRCA gets $5.3m grant for computer facilities

The Australian Financial Review
20 November 2001
Helen Meredith

An Australian research centre, SIRCA, has been awarded a three-year $5.3 million grant under the Commonwealth Government's Systematic Infrastructure Initiate Program.

SIRCA, the Securities Industry Research Centre of Asia-Pacific, is an alliance of researchers from 22 Australian universities. It was set up to promote innovation and best practice in financial market design and the finance functions of member companies.

The funds, provided through the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, will be used to provide specialised high-performance computer facilities for finance, accounting, economics and business research and training.

Under the grant SIRCA also has the support of SMARTS Pty Ltd, which supplies surveillance and trading software, te Australian Stock Exchange, Sydney Futures Exchange, the Australian Financial Markets Association and the Australian Centre for Advanced Computing and Communication (ac3).

SIRCA chief Dr Michael Briers said having an advanced infrastructure in place gave researchers more time to spend interacting with industry.

The grant would extend the advantages, providing new high-performance computing facilities, better storage, better data feeds and specialised hardware and software for data visualisation.

"It will place Australia at the forefront in these critical areas," Dr Briers said.

SIRCA points to two statements from the Wallis Report which it says backs up its strategy: "The stability, integrity and efficiency of the financial system are critical to the performance of the entire economy ... providing in excess of $40 billion worth of services annually to the other sectors of the economy.

"There are very large efficiency gains and cost savings which could be released from the existing systems through the improvement in the regulatory framework and through continuing developments in technology and innovation."

Dr Briers said traditional businesses, such as mining and manufacturing, now accounted for only 30 per cent of GDP - and were shrinking.

"By comparison the finance industry is the fourth-largest sector contributor and is growing," he said.