Bank Of Mozambique launches Real-time Gross Settlement Platform

BANK OF MOZAMBIQUE LAUNCHES REAL-TIME GROSS SETTLEMENT PLATFORM

Maputo, 1 Dec (AIM) – The Bank of Mozambique launched on Thursday a Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) platform, which intends to improve transactions in the money, foreign exchange, and capital markets and monetary policy transactions.

This platform provides financial institutions with an appropriate instrument for liquidity management, making it a tool that minimizes payment risks.

According to the Governor of the Bank of Mozambique, Rogério Zandamela, the launch of the platform is part of a broad project to modernize the National Payment System (SNP), which focuses on digitizing the means of payment, a process that began in 2000.

“It makes it possible to use several currencies in transactions. It contains a system for monitoring the operation of the platform through visual and audible alerts of anomalies in transactions. It is adjusted to the ISO 20022 quality standard, which makes it possible to increase automation, reduce fraud and carry out higher quality analyses”, Zandamela said.

According to Zandamela, in addition to guaranteeing faster transactions, RTGS allows funds to be made available in real time, adding simultaneously various functionalities, in particular improving liquidity management by banks, as well as guaranteeing the authenticity of the senders of payment instructions through digital authentication.

The international tender for the provision of an RTGS platform was launched in 2017 and won by the American Montran Corporation.

For his part, the President of the Mozambican Banking Association (AMB), Teotónio Comiche, said that the platform challenges institutions to monitor transactions more closely, based on their materiality and the parties involved, in order to mitigate the risks of money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

Comiche explained that efforts are being made to adjust legislation and procedures in order to bring them into line with good international practices in the fight against the misuse and abuse of the financial system.

“In this context, it is opportune and necessary to speed up the process of revising the National Payments System Law, in order to respond effectively to the increase in national and international financial transactions, keep up with significant technological advances and the sophistication of the offer of financial products and services”, Comiche said.

(AIM)

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