The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) that would enable African countries to trade with one another using their own currencies has just begun conducting business operations with nine African countries now signed up, Benedict Oramah, president of the Afreximbank has stated.
The bank expects between 15 and 20 nations to have enrolled in the PAPSS by the end of the year, the bank's president said before the lender's annual meetings in Ghana's capital.
Oramah, whose bank provides funding for the PAPSS system, said that the system at present uses dollar exchange rates.
"But we are working with central banks to develop an exchange-rate mechanism [to enable the continent's 42 currencies to be converted among each other]. What we are doing is to domesticate intra-African payments," he stated.
PAPSS, the African Continental Free Trade Agreement and other projects, aim to increase African internal commerce by eliminating barriers, including the requirement for intermediaries such as the US dollar.
William Ruto, the president of Kenya, has also repeatedly urged African leaders to stop using the US currency for intra-African commerce.
"We do not have to look for dollars; our businessmen will concentrate on moving goods and services, and leave the arduous task of currencies to Afreximbank," President Ruto emphasized.
The president outlined that this is feasible provided African leaders encourage central and commercial banks to join PAPSS.
"I suggest that we have a mechanism where we can settle all our payments, whether between our countries or externally, using our [local] currencies. And we have a mechanism such as the one that has been put up by the Afreximbank so that we don’t have to be hostage to any one currency," Ruto stressed.
Oramah, at the same time, disagreed with the notion that PAPSS aims to bypass the US currency.
"We’re not bypassing anybody,” he stressed. "Not the dollar, not the yuan, not the euro. That’s not the objective of the project."
But over time, he noted, the system does seek to reduce dependency on foreign currencies.
Recently, African leaders have been urging more and more commerce in currencies other than the US dollar (so-called "de-dollarization"). For example, the South Africa's High Commissioner to India recently denounced the global economy's "domination" by the US dollar.