Published: May 01, 2008
The company started in Botswana in 1979. At the time, Botswana looked attractive compared to neighbouring South Africa as a domicile because it was not affected by the trade sanctions relating to apartheid. This meant that we were able to obtain the necessary equipment when competitors in South Africa could not - or only with great difficulty. Being able to access the instruments we needed relatively easily, was an important factor in the early days in picking up contracts for geophysical exploration.
Originally we were in both ground and aerial geophysics. As part of the latter business we combined four magnetometers in a Cessna 404 Titan to create the first commercial gradiometer aircraft in the world. The use of four sensors means that the total magnetic field vector can be determined, thus allowing more accurate determination of the target location. This means that when surveying a given strip of land you don’t have to fly so many passes, potentially reducing the cost of the survey by 10-15%.
We subsequently sold the aerial geophysics business and now just focus on ground geophysics. Poseidon works on a contract consulting basis for a variety of mining companies across southern Africa in countries such as Botswana, Mali, Sudan and Tanzania. The equipment we typically use involves injecting current into the ground using a series of electrodes. The electromagnetic signals generated by this process can then be used to determine whether a particular mineral is present or not and, if so, in what quantities.
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Pretty much; we banked with another bank for three weeks, but quickly left them and have been with Standard Chartered ever since.
It’s certainly proved a considerable time saver. A simple example of this would be salaries; in the past we would pay these by cheque. That wasn’t too bad if I happened to be in the office to sign them, though the staff would still have to queue in the bank to deposit their cheques. However, if I was in the bush somewhere I would have to fax instructions to the company’s lawyer authorising him to pay the salaries. That wasn’t a trivial matter, for although I had the necessary fax software on my laptop, the problem lay in finding an analogue phone line of sufficient quality to make the transmission. In practice I often had to resort to using an Inmarsat satellite phone link which was very expensive. Furthermore, it wasn’t uncommon for the transmission to fail and have to be repeated.
We combined four magnetometers in a Cessna 404 Titan to create the first commercial gradiometer aircraft in the world.
Now we use Straight2Bank to pay salaries, it is far more efficient whether I am in the office or in the middle of nowhere. If I am in the bush I can simply pull over, set up my satellite antenna and laptop on the bonnet of the vehicle, connect to Straight2Bank and pay the salaries direct into employees’ bank accounts. In fact our bookkeeper in the office can set up a batch of transactions for me in advance in Straight2Bank, so all I actually have to do is authorise them for payment, which saves even more time. The bottom line is that I don’t have the hassle of faxing instructions to the lawyer, and employees don’t have the hassle of banking cheques.
Very good; I’m actually using a satellite modem to make the connection, so all I have to do is point it at the right satellite and establish a link. The connection isn’t especially fast (about 128 kb) but is still a lot faster and more reliable than a fax. We pay for the connection based on data transfer rates; currently about USD5 per megabyte.
One of the good things about Straight2Bank is that it is very functional in appearance and design, which makes it well suited to a satellite connection. You aren’t paying to download unnecessary graphics or other bells and whistles that hog bandwidth but don’t actually do anything to help you make transactions.
It is certainly robust; in addition to the basics such as user name and password you also need to have a card reader and ID card attached to your computer. Another advantage of Straight2Bank is that it has multi-tiered security. Some other banks only give you a single user name and password so it isn’t possible to set different authorisation levels. This isn’t very helpful if you are connecting from the middle of nowhere as it means you have to set up all the transactions yourself as well as authorise them. By contrast, Straight2Bank’s multiple authority levels mean that our bookkeeper can set up batches of salary and creditor payments for me in advance. Once they are prepared I can then just log in and quickly authorise them, whether I am sitting in the same office - or standing on a muddy track two thousand miles away.
Pretty much everything; about the only thing you can’t use it for is to extract cash from your computer. It’s certainly had an influence on our payment methods. For example, we used to write perhaps fifty cheques a month; that’s probably down to three or four now.
However, probably the most useful feature of Straight2Bank for us is the ability to do FX translations and payments at the same time. That is particularly important for us, as we are working with suppliers all over the world who have to be paid in foreign currency - in fact around half of our outgoings are in foreign exchange. For example, our satellite ISP is paid in dollars in Hong Kong, while quite a few of our equipment suppliers are based in South Africa and have to be paid in rand.[[[PAGE]]]
Being able to do the FX conversion and payment simultaneously can therefore make a substantial difference to our productivity. Most of the equipment we use is highly specialised, so if something goes wrong and needs replacing we can’t just order a replacement from the dealer up the road. Instead it’s a case of contacting a supplier perhaps thousands of miles away and having to pay them in a foreign currency. In the past, doing that required completing paper application forms for each FX transaction and submitting them to the bank along with the payment instruction - always assuming I was anywhere near a bank where I could do this.
Security: the technology that makes it possible- Stright2Bank's ID card.
Definitely not; previously if we needed a part and I was on the road it was a case of contacting our book keeper, having her complete the necessary paperwork, and then contacting our lawyer to authorise this and submit the documents to the bank. At the very minimum this used to take a whole day.
Now I can simply log on to Straight2Bank and complete the whole process from wherever I happen to be. If the beneficiary has already been set up as a payee in Straight2Bank, the whole process will probably take no more than five minutes. Another nice touch with Straight2Bank is that we can also make an instant PDF of the proof of payment and e-mail that to a supplier. If we don’t have a credit account with them, that certainty of payment means that if we need a part in a hurry they can ship it immediately, rather than having to wait for the funds to clear into their account.
We used to write perhaps fifty cheques a month; that's propably down to three or four now.
We had a recent example of this where we were running a survey in Tanzania and there was a flash rain storm. Before the operator could cover up the transmitting equipment it was soaked in rain, which blew one of its circuit boards. We obviously needed to source a replacement as soon as possible so we could get on with the survey. Using Straight2Bank we were able to make the necessary FX translation, pay for the new part and send proof of payment in a matter of minutes from a laptop on the bonnet of one of our trucks. That probably saved us two days of downtime in comparison with the old paper based way of doing things... nHow long has Poseidon been going?
The company started in Botswana in 1979. At the time, Botswana looked attractive compared to neighbouring South Africa as a domicile because it was not affected by the trade sanctions relating to apartheid. This meant that we were able to obtain the necessary equipment when competitors in South Africa could not - or only with great difficulty. Being able to access the instruments we needed relatively easily, was an important factor in the early days in picking up contracts for geophysical exploration.
Originally we were in both ground and aerial geophysics. As part of the latter business we combined four magnetometers in a Cessna 404 Titan to create the first commercial gradiometer aircraft in the world. The use of four sensors means that the total magnetic field vector can be determined, thus allowing more accurate determination of the target location. This means that when surveying a given strip of land you don’t have to fly so many passes, potentially reducing the cost of the survey by 10-15%. [[[PAGE]]]
We subsequently sold the aerial geophysics business and now just focus on ground geophysics. Poseidon works on a contract consulting basis for a variety of mining companies across southern Africa in countries such as Botswana, Mali, Sudan and Tanzania. The equipment we typically use involves injecting current into the ground using a series of electrodes. The electromagnetic signals generated by this process can then be used to determine whether a particular mineral is present or not and, if so, in what quantities.
Pretty much; we banked with another bank for three weeks, but quickly left them and have been with Standard Chartered ever since.
It’s certainly proved a considerable time saver. A simple example of this would be salaries; in the past we would pay these by cheque. That wasn’t too bad if I happened to be in the office to sign them, though the staff would still have to queue in the bank to deposit their cheques. However, if I was in the bush somewhere I would have to fax instructions to the company’s lawyer authorising him to pay the salaries. That wasn’t a trivial matter, for although I had the necessary fax software on my laptop, the problem lay in finding an analogue phone line of sufficient quality to make the transmission. In practice I often had to resort to using an Inmarsat satellite phone link which was very expensive. Furthermore, it wasn’t uncommon for the transmission to fail and have to be repeated.
We can make an instant PDF of the proof of payment and e-mail that to a supplier.
Now we use Straight2Bank to pay salaries, it is far more efficient whether I am in the office or in the middle of nowhere. If I am in the bush I can simply pull over, set up my satellite antenna and laptop on the bonnet of the vehicle, connect to Straight2Bank and pay the salaries direct into employees’ bank accounts. In fact our bookkeeper in the office can set up a batch of transactions for me in advance in Straight2Bank, so all I actually have to do is authorise them for payment, which saves even more time. The bottom line is that I don’t have the hassle of faxing instructions to the lawyer, and employees don’t have the hassle of banking cheques.
Very good; I’m actually using a satellite modem to make the connection, so all I have to do is point it at the right satellite and establish a link. The connection isn’t especially fast (about 128 kb) but is still a lot faster and more reliable than a fax. We pay for the connection based on data transfer rates; currently about USD5 per megabyte.
One of the good things about Straight2Bank is that it is very functional in appearance and design, which makes it well suited to a satellite connection. You aren’t paying to download unnecessary graphics or other bells and whistles that hog bandwidth but don’t actually do anything to help you make transactions.
It is certainly robust; in addition to the basics such as user name and password you also need to have a card reader and ID card attached to your computer. Another advantage of Straight2Bank is that it has multi-tiered security. Some other banks only give you a single user name and password so it isn’t possible to set different authorisation levels. This isn’t very helpful if you are connecting from the middle of nowhere as it means you have to set up all the transactions yourself as well as authorise them. By contrast, Straight2Bank’s multiple authority levels mean that our bookkeeper can set up batches of salary and creditor payments for me in advance. Once they are prepared I can then just log in and quickly authorise them, whether I am sitting in the same office - or standing on a muddy track two thousand miles away. [[[PAGE]]]
Pretty much everything; about the only thing you can’t use it for is to extract cash from your computer. It’s certainly had an influence on our payment methods. For example, we used to write perhaps fifty cheques a month; that’s probably down to three or four now.
However, probably the most useful feature of Straight2Bank for us is the ability to do FX translations and payments at the same time. That is particularly important for us, as we are working with suppliers all over the world who have to be paid in foreign currency - in fact around half of our outgoings are in foreign exchange. For example, our satellite ISP is paid in dollars in Hong Kong, while quite a few of our equipment suppliers are based in South Africa and have to be paid in rand.
Being able to do the FX conversion and payment simultaneously can therefore make a substantial difference to our productivity. Most of the equipment we use is highly specialised, so if something goes wrong and needs replacing we can’t just order a replacement from the dealer up the road. Instead it’s a case of contacting a supplier perhaps thousands of miles away and having to pay them in a foreign currency. In the past, doing that required completing paper application forms for each FX transaction and submitting them to the bank along with the payment instruction - always assuming I was anywhere near a bank where I could do this.
Definitely not; previously if we needed a part and I was on the road it was a case of contacting our book keeper, having her complete the necessary paperwork, and then contacting our lawyer to authorise this and submit the documents to the bank. At the very minimum this used to take a whole day.
Now I can simply log on to Straight2Bank and complete the whole process from wherever I happen to be. If the beneficiary has already been set up as a payee in Straight2Bank, the whole process will probably take no more than five minutes. Another nice touch with Straight2Bank is that we can also make an instant PDF of the proof of payment and e-mail that to a supplier. If we don’t have a credit account with them, that certainty of payment means that if we need a part in a hurry they can ship it immediately, rather than having to wait for the funds to clear into their account.
We had a recent example of this where we were running a survey in Tanzania and there was a flash rain storm. Before the operator could cover up the transmitting equipment it was soaked in rain, which blew one of its circuit boards. We obviously needed to source a replacement as soon as possible so we could get on with the survey. Using Straight2Bank we were able to make the necessary FX translation, pay for the new part and send proof of payment in a matter of minutes from a laptop on the bonnet of one of our trucks. That probably saved us two days of downtime in comparison with the old paper based way of doing things...
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