Harare - African central banks have a vital role to play as verifiers in the implementation of the Mansa Repository Platform, which the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) established as a centralized customer due diligence repository to serve African entities; financial institutions, corporates and SMEs, Amr Kamel, the Bank’s Executive Vice President in charge of Business Development and Corporate Banking, has said.
The Mansa Repository Platform, launched during the Afreximbank Annual Meetings in Abuja in July, was established to serve as a primary source of data collection centre for all African entities; financial institutions, corporates and SMEs.
Mr. Kamel, who was speaking in Cairo during a high-level technical workshop hosted by Afreximbank for African central banks, said that the importance of their contribution came from their roles as the supervisory organs for financial institutions and good governance administrators.
“We count on your partnership and support to make this initiative a reality and a success,” said Mr. Kamel. He noted that the initiative had reached the operationalization stage, with the upload of KYC/CDD data and information about African entities for the use of subscribers, such as international correspondent banks, global investors and development financial institutions.
He said that the Mansa Repository Platform was the first digital customer due diligence platform to address the KYC challenges confronting African businesses and that it would play a vital role in providing authenticated KYC information about entities in the African economic environment.
It will also ensure that African SMEs start recognizing the importance of providing adequate and authentic information about themselves in order to create trust and credibility, he noted.
Central banks from across the continent took part in the workshop which was convened to address their requests for better understanding of their role as verifiers in the initiative.
The session also enabled the participants to learn about the functionalities and capabilities of the repository platform and to carry out hands-on testing of the use of the platform.
The participants commended Afreximbank for the initiative and expressed the belief that it will restore investors’ confidence and reduce the cost of compliance in Africa, thereby addressing the issue of de-risking of African financial institutions.
For background information, the name, MANSA, was chosen in honour of Mansa Moussa, a great African king of Mali, who, during his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, travelled with thousands of tonnes of gold.
History has it that he gave out so much of the gold as gifts to dignitaries in Europe that he had to borrow to return home to Mali in 1325.
Accordingly, the platform will open the door for Africa to trade and will enhance trade finance as it will help reduce compliance cost.
Afreximbank has been Zimbabwe’s biggest benefactor since the turn of the century, at a time when most global lenders had stopped extending fresh lines of credit to the southern African nation, either at the behest of Western countries that were livid over the country’s land redistribution programme or over defaulting on earlier loans.
Equity Axis News
