KCB Group has entered into a deal with the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System for cross-border transactions on the continent.
The deal was signed in Acra, Ghana on the sidelines of the Afrexim Bank Annual Meeting, making the lender first in East Africa to onboard the financial market infrastructure.
“With this agreement, we bring on board our payments and collections expertise spanning over 120 years. This means that our customers will now have access to vast economic opportunities that will deliver multiple advantages and efficiencies especially when conducting Intra-African trade payments,” said KCB Group CEO, Paul Russo
KCB’s Platform was Developed in line with AfrExim Bank and Targets Africa Contrinental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
It provides an alternative to current high-cost and lengthy correspondent banking relationships to facilitate trade and other economic activities among African countries through a simple, low-cost risk-controlled payment clearing and settlement system.
“As a Pan-African banking institution, it is our desire to play a bigger role in facilitating trade across Africa and beyond. With such partnerships, we shall be able to settle our own transactions including those for all its subsidiaries as well as for other commercial banks without many hurdles,” added Russo.
The platform will deliver multiple advantages and efficiencies to intra-African trade payments that include a reduction in the duration and time variability of cross-border payments across Africa, support real-time payments, decrease the liquidity requirements of commercial banks for cross-border payments, remove transaction value limits, enable commercial banks to set the applicable exchange rates and strengthen oversight of cross- border payment systems by Central Banks.
