Egypt’s central bank to join Afreximbank’s PAPSS platform soon: Orama

Egypt’s central bank will soon join the African Export-Import Bank’s (Afreximbank) Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), said president Benedict Oramah on Wednesday.

Orama added that the discussions to activate Egypt’s accession to Afreximbank’s PAPSS are going well. Egypt’s accession to PAPSS is extremely fundamental to promote intra-continental trade.

“The system, known as PAPSS, uses dollar exchange rates at the moment, but we are working with central banks to develop an exchange rate mechanism that would allow Africa’s 42 currencies to be convertible between themselves,” Orama said.

Afreximbank is making extensive efforts to implement commercial transactions through the PAPSS platform that was launched in January 2022.

Orama said he expects around 20 countries would join PAPSS by the end of the year.

To date, the platform started its commercial operations with nine countries that have signed up so far.