Africa: Pan-African Payment System Launched – How It Works

The long awaited Pan-African Payments and Settlement System (PAPSS) was launched Thursday, January 13, in Accra, Ghana, in a virtual event under the theme: “Connecting Payments, Accelerating Africa’s trade.”

The new system allows a buyer in one African country to make a payment in his or her national currency and the seller in another country receives payment in their local currency.

Its commercial launch came after a successful pilot in the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) region. The WAMZ is a West-African economic and integration body with six countries – Gambia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

According to Prudence Sebahizi, the Chief Technical Advisor at the AfCFTA Secretariat, the new system will allow a customer or a buyer to make payment in a national currency and the seller will receive the payment their own currency.

This, he noted, is way easier and less costly than changing the Kenyan shilling to the US dollar and then converting the US dollar to the Ghanaian cedi, as has been the case.