The Banking Executive Magazine - August 2021

AMF AMF, VISA TO SUPPORT GROWTH OF CROSS-BORDER PAYMENTS BETWEEN ARAB REGION AND GLOBAL MARKETS The Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) and Visa announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, under which Visa and Buna (The Re- gional Payment Platform owned by the AMF), will work together to en- able additional rails of money trans- fer across the two systems, supporting the growth and efficiency of cross-border payments between the Arab region and the rest of the world. Buna and Visa will collaborate to offer their network of participants and member banks respectively, a quick, efficient, cost effective and se- cure channels to execute cross-bor- der payments in Arab and International currencies, enabling di- versified pay out options. Both Buna and Visa will build on their strong capacities and value propositions, to cater to the growing financial needs of the Arab region, and design optimal solutions that can unlock sustainable opportunities in the payment industry. Commenting on signing the MoU, Dr. Abdulrahman A. Al Hamidy, Di- rector-General, Chairman of the Board of the Arab Monetary Fund, stressed the strategic aspects of such partnership and the added value it delivers for the regional and global financial community. "Buna and Visa partnership is in line with our strate- gic approach to join forces with in- ternational institutions that share with us the same vision to contribute to the development and growth of the payment industry across the Arab world and globally," said Dr. Al Hamidy. "With this initiative, Buna will pro- vide its participant banks additional safe and credible channels to broaden their cross-payment capac- ities, implement innovative business models and better serve their clien- tele. Both Visa and Buna will capi- talise on this partnership to deliver joint cross-border payment products and services that are risk controlled and with broad coverage and ex- tended availability to better serve the diverse needs of the financial and payment community in the Arab re- gion and beyond," he added. From her part, Dr. Saeeda Jaffar, Group General Manager for GCC at Visa, said: "This MoU reinforces Visa’s commitment to support the evolution of the Arab region and the vital role digital payments play in this sphere. We believe that driving adoption of real time payments can be enabled through value added services, and our vision is to support our clients to promote more innova- tive real time payments use cases to benefit customers in the region who are looking for industry leading money transfer and cross border so- lutions". Buna is a cross-border pay- ment system owned by the Arab Monetary Fund, aiming to enable fi- nancial institutions and central banks in the Arab region and beyond to send and receive payments in local currencies as well as key interna- tional currencies in a safe, cost- ef- fective, risk-controlled, and transparent environment. the BANKING EXECUTIVE 14 ISSUE 152 AUGUST 2021