UNCTAD's Debt Management and Financial Analysis System (DMFAS

Among the immediate benefits, the new classification and coding system gives the debt officer the ability toproduce 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 andUsers.Furthermore, the loan module has facilities for:• Recording secondary market shares and share movements for syndicated loans in order to report theexposure 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 tospecific agreed minutes, general agreements, projects and budget lines;• Recording customized information through user-defined fields. These fields allow the debt officers tocater to country-specific loan details that can then be used as selection and sorting criteria whengenerating reports.The bond module is similar to the loan module: all the basicinformation such as the different references, the issue date and theissue end date is recorded in the General Information window. Thebond’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. Theyare usually traded in organized financial instrument markets. Bonds usually give the holder an unconditionalright to money income that is either fixed or variable and determined contractually. Except for perpetualbonds, bonds also provide the holder with an unconditional right to a fixed sum as repayment of principal ona 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-termobligations.Tranche informationWhat is a tranche?In a loan, a tranche is a set of disbursements, the repayment of which is under its own specific financialterms. Tranches represent the distinct parts of a loan as defined by the creditor in the detailed paymentschedules sent to the debtor.In DMFAS a “tranche” is defined as an autonomous entity with its own currency, drawings, principalpayment schedule and interest terms: each tranche has its own amortization table. Furthermore, a tranchecan 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. These8