CBN, BoG, others begin Pan African Payment System

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The Pan-African Payment and Settlement Systems (PAPSS) has been unleashed among all the various central banks across Africa

The new payment system is a cross-border financial market infrastructure that allows and enhances payment transactions across Africa and will seal trade loopholes and setbacks among the 41 known currencies in Africa.

The payment system is said to clear the estimated $5 billion transactions cost Africa’s central banks have been facing over the years.

Aside from its known means of bringing effective transactions between the various central banks, another area that the PAPSS will help the Africa continent is the facilitation of the intra-African trade which is enabled by the African Continental Free Trade Area.

Reports gathered reveal that six pilot central banks are already on its website.

They include the Central Central Bank of Liberia, Bank of Ghana, Central Bank of the Gambia, Bank of Nigeria, Central, Bank of Sierra Leone, and Bank of the Republic of Guinea

On the website, PAPSS said it “is bringing together a growing network of central banks, commercial banks, payment service providers and other financial intermediaries, recognising the economic benefits of simplifying the payment landscape across the African continent so that more Africans can trade with each other.”

During the launch in Ghana, the Chief Executive Officer of PAPSS, Mike Ogbalu, said “The system we have built is an infrastructure that will require third party interactions, so we may need even mobile money agents and other payment channels.

“By this way, traders can transact without necessary going to the banks when they need to send cash to other countries”

The Vice President of the Africa Development Bank, Solomon Quaynor said, “As a development bank for the continent, we are proud of the success story for this journey today and hope that it will benefit all Africans.

“The new payment system is critical to our quest to boost intra- African trade and reduce cost of doing business for Africans which has been an impediment for some time now.”