4 November, 2009 - Deputy governors of the SAARC central banks met yesterday in Thimphu as part of a regional forum created in 2008 to build a common understanding and help member countries in reforming national payment and settlement systems (PSS).
The regional forum, called the SAARC Payments Initiative (SPI), also looks broadly at establishing appropriate regional payment systems to facilitate safe and efficient trade and investment flows in the region.
In yesterday’s meeting, the sixth one since the SAARC Payments Council was established and hosted by the RMA, member countries made presentations on their payment systems and took stock of recent PSS developments in the region.
“There was a general consensus that each country should draw up a payment system that is appropriate and suitable to their environment,” said the deputy managing director of the Royal Monetary Authority, Dechen Tshering, who chaired the meeting. “For RMA the SAARC payments initiative has been particularly instrumental in assisting Bhutan to gain access to much needed resources that could be used to evaluate and plan for the development of our national payments and settlement system.”
The RMA has an ongoing project to make possible the transfer of funds and payments electronically by the end of 2010. “This basically means that payments of utility bills, insurance premiums, dividends can be done through the electronic media,” said the RMA head of payment systems, J N Pradhan. “It also won’t be necessary as it is now for both the employer and employee to have accounts in the same bank to say transfer salaries.”
The Reserve Bank of India is providing RMA with the software, technical expertise and training to launch the electronic system. “RMA and the commercial banks which will adopt the electronic system will have to buy the hardware component – servers, computers – for the new system,” said J N Pradhan.
By Phuntsho Wangdi
