Chief Executive Officer of the Pan-African Payment and Settlement Systems (PAPSS) at the Afreximbank, Mike Ogbalu III, says commercial banks, fin-techs and other small payments services providers can now be linked to the infrastructure following its successful pilot in the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) region.
“With the launch, PAPSS’ door is open and we’re ready to scale the solution beyond the West African Monetary Zone where we’ve done the pilot to the length and breadth of Africa.We’re inviting all the commercial banks to connect to this platform that we believe will transform trade on the continent,” he tells Single African Market in an interview.
He adds: “Beyond the WAMZ countries, we are making progress; we are engaging the rest of Africa on multiple fronts, as individual countries and as regional economic blocs. We know that there are certain critical payments infrastructure that exists on the continent.”According to the PAPSS boss, the enthusiasm about the cross-border payments infrastructure has been very encouraging having enjoyed massive support from central banks and businesses of the continent.
To him, the platform will greatly impact the volume of trade across Africa as businesses can now access a more convenient, timely and cost-effective channel for all trade-related payments.“As you know, individual businesses and governments consume goods and services and trade and the exchange of value is how those goods and services are consumed. So, the more we make payments efficient, the more we promote trade,” he indicates.
Mr. Ogbalu III says that PAPSS is more like a superhighway on which all digital financial transactions could ride, adding that the aim is to have a system that supports even fintech startups.“We can look at PAPSS as a superhighway connecting countries and the players or users of the platform as cars that drive of that road; these cars could be the commercial banks, central banks and payment services providers,” he hints on.
Following its official launch, the operator of the system says there has been huge demand from target institutions to get connected to the PAPSS platform, according to its CEO
“We are working on scaling up the team to be able to handle the demand and we’re getting better at the way we handle the integration processes which can now be done under a month.We are getting more efficient but if we are to connect all of Africa within the shortest possible time, we have to build that capacity to run multiple projects in a shorter space of time,” he notes.
Meanwhile, the PAPSS boss applauds the leadership of the AfCFTA Secretariat for the significant strides that have been achieved by the Secretariat in line with its mandate to supervise and spearhead the integration of the African continent through trade.“What the AfCFTA Secretariat has achieved in this small time is very phenomenal compared with other trade agreements that have been done and they are on course to get us to that Africa that we want,” Mr. Ogbalu III says.
He describes the single continental market as an ambitious project in which PAPSS will play its significant role in bringing out the volumes of trade.“Going forward, as the benefits begin to materialize, a lot more countries will ratify and begin to trade. Significant growth in the volumes of trade among countries. This is a call to all Africans to get involved because if we all begin to believe in this vision,” he adds.
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