Sierra Leone News: Sierra Leone Contracts Altarra Group to Advice on National Switch

Business

The Bank of Sierra Leone has contracted Altarra a consulting group registered in Switzerland to advice the bank on the implementation of the National Switch process, Erik Holst Roness CEO of Altarra said in an email. The Switch is an integrated and interoperable payment system for switching and clearing electronic payments initiated at payment terminals owned by different financial institutions with various types of payment cards. “Altarra is acting as advisor to the Bank of Sierra Leone on the Switch implementation process. We do not supply Switches or hardware. Our experience allows us to help the Bank of Sierra Leone avoid common mistakes and ensure that the Switch when supplied is appropriate for Sierra Leone,” Erik Holst Roness said. The formulation of the National Switch began in 2009. A fully functional and operational Switch helps to achieve a cashless society and provides very good data to form monetary policy decision. The Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone Momodu Kargbo launched the National Switch project on 24th November, 2015 and announced the award of the advisory contract to Altarra Group in Freetown on January 21, 2016. The Switch project will last for a year and will be live before the end of 2016, Governor Kargbo said. “Altarra does not build Switches but have worked with National Switch operations in Nigeria, Mozambique, South Africa, Ethiopia, Thailand, etc,” he stated. In West Africa, only 3 countries have Switches Nigeria, Ghana and The Gambia. In Ghana it is branded as e-Zwich a subproject of the National Electronic Payment System. The Bank of Ghana initiated the project in 2006. “A typical Switch project will take approximately twelve months to complete,” he said. The project is funded by The Bank of Sierra Leone, the Sierra Leone Association of Commercial Banks and the World Bank. Electronic payment systems and interoperability of financial institutions is still a challenge. There are 13 commercial banks with 91 branches across the country. Only 6 banks have Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and only 4 have Point of Sale (POS) terminals. The ATMs and POS are concentrated in the capital and urban centres. Total ATMs operating in the country are 58 and there is nothing like interoperability of banks. Payment system heavily depends on cash with a large unbanked population. The central bank launched the mobile money transfer guidelines for both operators and the clients in November 2015. Kenya is often cited as a success story for mobile money transfer system. “We believe that the establishment of a well functional National Switch will strengthen the delivery of financial services by creating a single integrated and effective platform for the settlement on interbank electronic payments derived from different channels,” Hasiatu Jalloh-Agbaje, President, Sierra Leone Association of Commercial Banks said. Monday February 15, 2016

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