ECOWAS to set up regional Payment and Settlement System

ECOWAS Commission called on member states to intensify efforts toward the setting up a regional Payment and Settlement System.
This will be a key component of an ECOWAS Common Investment Market (ECIM) and a necessary building block for the establishment of an economic union.
This is contained in a statement issued by Sunny Ugoh, the commission?s spokesperson on Thursday in Abuja.
ECOWAS Commissioner for Industry and Private Sector Promotion, Kalilou Traore, made the call at the Central Banks Payment Systems Experts? meeting on Wednesday in Dakar, Senegal.
The meeting was on the establishment of the ECOWAS Payment and Settlement System (EPSS) aimed at promoting monetary and financial integration.
It will also facilitate intra-community trade in goods and services and the realisation of the community’s objective of establishing an economic union.
The statement stated that Traore described the EPSS programme as one of the roadmap activities for the realisation of ECOWAS single currency.
It said representing Traore, Peter Oluonye, the Directorate?s Principal Programme Officer said it was in tandem with steps already taken by some Regional Economic Communities (RECs) across the African continent.
He said an EPSS study revealed that apart from Guinea Bissau and Liberia, all the banks in the rest 13 countries in the region were already operating on the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system.
He stated that it was a critical pre-condition for the operation of the EPSS.
Traore listed some of the expected benefits of the EPSS as guarantying of prompt payment to the exporter, building of trust among traders.
He said that it would also lead to a drastic reduction in the cost of intra-regional trade transactions and remittance, among others.
“With EPSS, the need for correspondent banking to facilitate trade transactions between ECOWAS member states will soon be unnecessary,? Traore said.