The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) held a workshop on the electronic banking system for Egyptian banks in the regional system of clearing and settling payments between the African countries, members of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) agreement, in addition to the participation of more than 60 members of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce (FEDCOC) and the Egyptian Businessmen Association (EBA), in coordination with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
According to Ayman Hussein, Deputy Governor of the CBE of the Payment Systems and Information Technology Sector, the new system, which was launched in May, will play a role in supporting and developing Egyptian economic relations with African countries and facilitating the transfer of funds among Member States. Aiming to facilitate the trade them.
He added that the CBE has started a series of workshops aimed at raising the awareness of all sectors of the State of the new system and its importance, including all parties to introduce the system. The first workshop was held in June 2017 for officials of the Egyptian banking sector.
During the second symposium held a few days ago, Hussain and the Central Payment Systems Department team presented an explanatory presentation on the system. The system reduces the external banking fees of the correspondent banks and reduces the period of settlement, as well as increasing confidence among the customers.
For his part, Ehab Nasr, supervisor of the Payment Systems Department at the CBE, gave a detailed explanation on the clearing house’s working model.
Nasr explained that the project is based on the establishment of a clearing house for COMESA countries, through which all payments are made between commercial banks in the region. Each central bank acts as correspondent bank for its commercial banks. Each country participates in the system through its central bank the system.
He added that according to these arrangements, each central bank will carry out the payment and receipt of remittances belonging to the commercial banks in his country, which are carried out with other commercial banks in any of the COMESA countries involved in the system.
The new system includes member states such as Egypt, Kenya, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Rwanda, Mauritius, Uganda, Swaziland and Malawi are expected to join the new system.
