East Africa has taken another significant step towards building a more integrated regional financial system, with the East African Community establishing three technical groups to move its cross-border payment strategy from planning into implementation.
The initiative is designed to make regional payments more secure, efficient, affordable and inclusive across the eight-member bloc. Representatives from the central banks of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania participated in the first joint meeting of the new Technical Working Groups in Mombasa.
The EAC Secretariat was joined by development partners including the World Bank, GIZ, the FSD Network and TradeMark Africa. The five-day meeting examined the institutional systems that will be required if the region is to move towards genuinely interconnected financial markets. One of the central documents reviewed was a monitoring and reporting framework for 20 strategic initiatives within the EAC Cross-Border Payment System Masterplan.
The framework is designed to establish measurable indicators, baselines and targets, while aligning the regional programme with wider G20 objectives for improving cross-border payments. Officials also reviewed a proposed cooperative oversight framework. That system would clarify how regulators in different EAC states share supervisory responsibilities, exchange information and respond to disputes or crises involving payment systems operating across national borders.
