South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Benjamin Takpiny
The Governor of the Bank of South Sudan (BOSS), Dr. James Alic Garang on Tuesday encouraged the public to open personal bank and mobile money accounts to ease cash transactions in line with it’s objective of realizing a cashless economy.
“The public is urged to join the banking system by opening bank accounts to facilitate their receipts and payments or promote digitalization of financial services across the country,” Garang said during a press conference held at the central bank headquarters in Juba.
He said that commercial banks should ease the cost of opening up bank accounts for all customers, especially those traditionally excluded from the banking sector.
Garang encouraged the public to embrace electronic payment platforms, including mobile money, credit and debit cards, which incur low charges on transactions, while offering convenience and establishing individual credit history.
He also said that commercial banks and mobile money operators should collaborate and ensure interoperability or modalities that allow customers to move funds between their bank accounts and mobile money accounts seamlessly.
“This new policy direction underscores the importance of digitalization and deploying related Fintech applications, the proposed financial instruments and the necessary steps to ensure their effective adoption will reduce the risks associated with carrying cash,” Garang said.
He added that the move will ensure convenience and speed, while allowing the central bank to exercise greater control over cash in circulation, thereby improving the conduct of monetary policy.
“The bank urges all stakeholders, including the public, financial institutions, and development partners to collaborate in realizing the above key policy objective,” Garang said.
He noted that in many countries people are no longer carrying cash, saying that South Sudanese need to emulate this practice.
“The central bank policy is that we like to do everything we can, all of us to discourage carrying cash and encouraging our people to adopt electronic means of payment whether people have bank accounts or mobile money accounts, those are means that can be used to facilitate,” Garang said.
“We encourage all of you to go out there and encourage our people to open their bank account, and we encourage all of you to communicate among yourselves, between the mobile operators and with the commercial banks, and we encourage all of you also to cooperate with us because together we can move this financial system forward,” he disclosed.
Mou Ambrose, chief of operation manager of M-Gurush mobile money company urged authorities to come up with a timeline when commercial banks must transition towards digital economy.
He said that there are some utilities that collect so much money which they don’t deposit with commercial banks.
“This is the reality; it is still an informal economy. How are we going to change this? It is in fact not allowing the central bank to be able to control the money in circulation in the economy, you will not now be able even to put in the production areas of the economy, but it would be like a service exchange and this is where the non-controllable situation of the currency itself becomes a very challenging situation,” Ambrose said.
