The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa COMESA has launched a digital payments system to cut transaction costs by allowing businesses to settle deals in local currencies, it said on Thursday.
COMESA, which has 21 member states including Egypt, Kenya and Ethiopia, joins efforts by the African continent to push for local currency payments systems to cut trade costs by eliminating the need to convert local currencies into hard currencies, mostly US dollars, for cross-border payments.
The new platform, known as the Digital Retail Payments Platform, is starting off with trials between Malawi and Zambia , COMESA said in a statement.
