Experience

Our experience covers the following areas:

Strategic Level

  • Policy development (at central bank, industry association and financial institution levels) in areas such as payment strategy development, operations risk mitigation, bank supervision and national legislation 

  • External Consultant & Advisors - various advisory roles on bank and bank systems to central banks, banking associations and financial institutions.

Operations level 

  • RTGS design, development and implementation (at central bank and financial institution level)

  • SWIFT expertise in interfacing design, usage, CUG development and implementation

  • Education & training of bank staff in all payments, risk and operations aspects

  • SWIFT operational expertise 

  • Risk Assessment and Mitigation at a bank operations level

  • Bank product design and development including legal aspects, document design, establishment of procedures

  • Operations management – branch operations management, electronic banking operations management, international trade finance (import-export) 

Software 

  • Banking software design, development and implementation (both in “in-house” and at commercial software firms). This includes payment systems, trade finance, commercial RTGS systems, wholesale and retail payments and e-commerce. 

  • Business Analysis - business/systems analysis, writing functional specifications, quality assurance and the reengineering of payments procedures and internal business practices. 

  • Education & training of bank staff in all aspects of specific software

  • Project management – project management roles

  • Systems implementation & implementation engineering

Citadel Advantage has extensive banking experience in a number of different countries. 

Africa:

South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho

Asia:

Kazakhstan, Singapore.

Australia:

Australia.

Europe:

France, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom.

Middle East:

Bahrain, Israel

North America:

USA, Canada, Bermuda

Staff

Stanley Epstein
Company Director & Principal Associate

Stanley holds a Masters degree in Economics and a BCom degree in Accounting from a major South African University. He has 41 years of banking and IT experience, 33 of which were with a major South African Bank. He has extensive exposure to banking practice and banking operations in South Africa, Israel, the USA, Europe and Australia which includes the role of advisor to a number of central banks on payment system, payments policy and payments risk issues and as a payment systems consultant to a global payments software developer.   

His experience includes an industry level role in South Africa during the 1990s where he held several key positions which included that of Chairman: Risk Committee – Payments Association of South Africa and the Vice Chairman – ERAG (Electronic Risk Assessment) Group – Clearing Bankers Association. He has also served as a Board Member of the Bankserv Electronic Funds Clearing Services (Johannesburg, South Africa) and a Member of Strategy Team of the South African Reserve Bank’s “National Payments System Steering Group” that led to the development of the South African RTGS system.

Richard Barr
Company Director & Principal Associate

Richard holds a B.S. in International Business Administration from a leading California University. His professional experience spans 20 years, 5 of which were spent with a leading U.S. Bank. Another 5 were spent honing his global banking expertise, involved with Trade Finance and cross border banking. 10 years have been in the Private and High-tech sectors providing high-level consulting services, business analysis, project management and training to a wide banking clientele spanning the globe.  

He has spent extensive time with a diversity of “financial institutional” clients in South Africa, Poland, Sweden, Ireland, Netherlands, Greece, Bermuda, Israel, Malawi, United Kingdom, North America and many other countries. Richard has filled the role of advisor to central banks on payment systems and technical payments issues.

Clients, Partners & Course Attendees

JUST A SAMPLE OF THE BANKS REPRESENTED BY ATTENDEES IN OUR COURSES...

    ABN Amro International
    ABSA South Africa
    Banca Comerciale Romania Romania
    Banca Romanesca Romania
    Bank Dhofar Oman 
  Central Bank Bank of England United Kingdom
  Central Bank Bank Indonesia Indonesia
  Central Bank Bank of Ireland Ireland
  Central Bank Bank of Portugal Portugal
    Barcalys Bank International
    Capitec Bank South Africa
  Central Bank Central Bank of Kuwait Kuwait
    Citigroup International
  Central Bank De Nederlandsche Bank Netherlands
    Export Development Bank of Egypt Egypt
    First Rand Bank South Africa
    Imperial Bank  South Africa
    Investcorp Bank Bahrain
    Kaupthing Bank Luxembourg
    MKB Bank Hungary
  Central Bank National Bank of Denmark Denmark
    Nedbank South Africa
    Porsche Bank  Romania
    Qatar Islamic Bank  Qatar
    Qatar National Bank  Qatar
    Rabobank International
    Rand Merchat Bank South Africa
    Rennies Bank South Africa
    Saudi French Bank Saudi Arabia
  Central Bank South African Reserve Bank South Africa
    MKB Bank Hungary
    Krajowa Izba Rozliczeniowa S.A. Poland
    Deutsche Bank International
    HBOS United Kingdom
    Stanbic Bank Botswana
    Standard Bank of South Africa South Africa

A PARTIAL LIST OF OUR PARTNERS AND CLIENTS...

  Marcus Evans United Kingdom
  Ethan Hathaway Hong Kong
  Money-Link International Consultants Malawi
  Logitech Consulting (Pty) Ltd Botswana
  IBM International
  Fundtech International
  National Bank of Malawi Malawi
  INDEbank Malawi
  Danske Bank Denmark

 

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