By Staff Reporter
CAIRO, April 27 — The Pan African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) and the African Securities Exchange Association (ASEA) have announced a strategic partnership to promote cross-border payments for capital markets infrastructure in Africa. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed on April 14, 2023, during the ASEA 2023 Building African Financial Markets Seminar held in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
For many years, investors doing business in Africa have faced challenges in making and settling cross-border payments. Payments take a long time to complete, are expensive due to the need for correspondent banks outside of the continent, and are conducted in foreign currencies. PAPSS, developed by Afreximbank and AfCFTA Secretariat, enables instant cross-border payments in local currency.
Through ASEA, which has nine exchanges and a combined market capitalization of $1.5 trillion, PAPSS provides an opportunity to enhance the African Exchanges Linkage Project (AELP), a flagship project of ASEA to facilitate cross-border trading of securities in Africa. PAPSS has already gone live in the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Gambia, and Guinea. Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Djibouti have recently joined the network and will soon be operational. This partnership with ASEA will facilitate the deployment of PAPSS across the ASEA member nations.
Mr. Mike Ogbalu III, the CEO of PAPSS, said, “Working with ASEA, which pioneered the AELP with cross-border securities trading as a central tenet, is a significant step towards the rollout of PAPSS throughout the continent.” The partnership aims to create a reliable and efficient payment system that will enable investors to easily trade across different stock exchanges on the continent.
Mr. Thapelo Tsheole, the President of ASEA and CEO of Botswana Stock Exchange, said, “Our capital markets integration initiative through the AELP will play a critical role in deepening Africa’s capital markets and promoting cross-border investment. PAPSS’s expertise in payment settlement will be instrumental in the cross-border transfer of funds among the participating exchanges.”
This partnership between PAPSS and ASEA represents a groundbreaking venture for the African business and investment communities. PAPSS is committed to fostering the growth of a thriving payment ecosystem and encouraging the development of new solutions for the economic advancement of the African continent and its people. – Namibia Daily News
