The Team
Our Core Beliefs
We believe that in order to develop an inclusive and growing economy, a cost-free saving mechanism and a cheap, safe and fast payment method is required, accessible to all consumers, rich and poor - at the same cost and level of convenience. Similarly, all businesses (large, medium, small and micro) need a level playing field in order to compete and this includes the ability to receive and make payments at the same cost.
We also believe that everyone should be free to control their money, and that payment systems and services should not be used to dictate how your hard earned money is spent, in other words who is paid and how much.
We subscribe to the principle of Treating Customers Fairly (TCF).
About Omnea (Pty) Ltd
Licensee of CHIPS in the Southern African region
Founded in 1999, Omnea – formerly known as Trustlink spearheaded the fintech movement by being the first TechFin business in Africa to provide enablement services and integrations to support their customers’ growth in the Fintech Industry.
Over 20 years later, we are now a trusted payment partner and leading FinTech advisory in Africa facilitating over half a trillion rand through our payment platform which enables over 450 000 individuals and businesses with payment services.
At Omnea, we believe that TechFin is the catalyst for growth in Africa, and by enabling the fintech industry through our open digital platform, we enable the creation of unique banking and financial services experiences for the markets we serve.
Our leading platform is enabled through its certified hosted service infrastructure and provides significant cost-efficiencies that result from economies of scale.
We believe that in order to develop an inclusive and growing economy, a regulated store of value mechanism that effectively separates the monetary and credit functions of the traditional banking system, together with a cost-effective, safe and fast payment method is required, accessible to all consumers, regardless of financial status, as well as all businesses (large, medium, small and micro) – at the same cost and level of convenience.
For transacting entities, such as banks, large businesses and financial institutions, to participate in the economy they need access to the payment system, as well as effective systems and infrastructure to manage payment flows and related information. Furthermore, transacting entities need to comply with regulations to protect deposits, safeguard the payment system, combat fraud, and much more.
This is where Omnea proudly plays a role in supporting secure payments and data exchange, whether they be bank to bank, bank to business or business to bank.
Omnea also offers CHIPS, as a service, to South African consumers, businesses and other organisations, as well as government.
Deon Tromp (CEO: Omnea (Pty) Ltd)
Deon has more than 18 years of banking and insurance experience in the fields of compliance, credit, risk management and capital management and is currently the CEO of Omnea (PTY) Ltd.
Deon previously held senior management positions with Nedbank, Standard Bank, Liberty and Barclays Africa. A key feature of his career revolved around conceptualising, designing, building and implementing methodologies, processes and systems to address complex problems and/or meet regulatory requirements in respect of capital management, the risk management life-cycle, risk data aggregation and risk reporting.
Deon has significant experience in the regulatory environment governing the financial services sector and was a member of the Financial Services Conduct Authority’s steering committee responsible for the development and implementation of the Solvency Assessment and Management (SAM) supervisory approach for prudential regulation. He was also responsible for leading the Liberty Group’s multi-year project for the successful implementation of the SAM regulations. Deon is a CFA Charterholder (CFA), a Certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM), an admitted Advocate of the High Court of South Africa and he holds degrees in commerce and law from the University of Pretoria.
Established in 2002, Omnea provides unique bank agnostic payment and liquidity management solutions, which enables total liquidity visibility across regions and bank accounts as well as enables banks and corporates to comply with regulations governing payments and fund transfers.
About CHIPS AG
CHIPS AG is a Swiss domiciled company, established in 2016 to focus on emerging technologies enabling digital money and the development of a new ecosystem that facilitates peer-to-peer payments.
CHIPS AG is a sister company of Omnea (Pty) Ltd, a respected and trusted payment services provider to banks, other financial institutions and corporates since 2002. Trustlink is implementing CHIPS as a service to consumers and businesses in South Africa.
Dr. Philip Tromp (Founder and Chairman: CHIPS AG)
Philip has more than 25 years’ experience in payment systems innovation, both in South Africa and internationally. He spent 22 years of his career at the South African Reserve Bank where he provided information technology solutions and in the latter part of his tenure was also responsible for the national payment system, co-founded and was at the helm of Perago for 10 years and has been the chairman of Trustlink for 13 years.
In the nineties (GM: Business Systems and Technology at the Reserve Bank at the time), he led a banking industry initiative to modernise the South African National Payment System. This ground-breaking exercise introduced, amongst others, a real-time payment system (SAMOS) between South African banks. The project also resulted in the promulgation of the first South African National Payment System Act, a self-regulating structure (PASA) to regulate the payments industry, as well as opening up competition in the provision of payment services to non-banks.
In 1999, he co-founded Perago Financial System Enablers (Pty) Ltd to develop and implement real-time financial infrastructure in central banks worldwide - the software developed by Perago today serves as the key financial infrastructure component of the financial systems of countries in Scandinavia, Africa, the Middle East and more recently Australasia.
He negotiated an agreement with SWIFT (the de facto international payment messaging provider) for Perago to become the regional SWIFT business partner for sub-Saharan Africa and established the Trustlink Service Bureau providing SWIFT access and services to financial institutions and corporates in 26 countries.
In 2004 he received a 'Chief Information Officer of the Decade' award from the Computer Society of South Africa (CSSA) and Computerweek Strategist, in 2006 a 'Certificate of Excellence as private sector CIO' from the South African Department of Communications and in 2016 a 'Lifetime Achievement Award' from the Payment Association of South Africa (PASA).
In 2016 he founded the Swiss-domiciled CHIPS AG to focus on the development of immediate value, peer-to-peer payment solutions for consumers and business.
Our Software Development Team
The CHIPS development team has extensive and unique experience in the field of financial system infrastructure development. The core team was instrumental in creating Perago's world-leading real-time gross settlement system, used by central banks in their respective countries to facilitate high-value payment flows between banks. The robust development approach and security requirements demanded by central banks for their interbank funds-transfer systems, have been carried through to the core of the CHIPS payment network.
Our Business Development and Marketing Team
Our team of enthusiastic and keen business developers and promotors will gladly assist you in exploring how the CHIPS Payment Network can improve your business or organisation. They are also ready to respond to any queries or cooperation ideas that you might have.