(Business in Cameroon) - On June 26, 2015, Tahir Hamid Nguilin, the Deputy Governor of the Central African States Bank (BEAC in French), officially launched, at the BEAC headquarters in Yaoundé, the activities of the Regional Committee for Method of Payment Monitoring in the CEMAC zone.

According to the BEAC Deputy Governor, the implementation of the monitoring body, which enables the central bank “to align with the good practices defined by the International Regulatory Bank,” comes in a context defined by the explosion of transactions using the methods of payment implemented by the BEAC for 10 years.

It involves the automated gross amount system (SYGMA), which enables the automatic and instantaneous resolution of transactions involving over 100 million FCFA and the Central African Telecompensation System (SYSTAC), which allows banks to automatically compensate cheques and other book money payments received from their customers.

93 trillion FCFA of transactions in 2014

In order to demonstrate the level of interest in these payment systems and the necessity of heightened monitoring, Tahir Hamid Nguilin, revealed that, in 2014 alone, over 185,000 transactions were done using Sygma for a total of 76.6 trillion FCFA, against 5 million transactions made on Systac, for 16.5 trillion FCFA. This amounts to 93 trillion FCFA of transactions on two platforms in only one year.

“We believe that monitoring is the only way to counter the risks inherent in the use of payment systems and reduce the possibility of financial crises as well as any eventual systemic contagions,” indicated the BEAC Deputy Governor.

Some 135 Sygma and Systac users (banks, Treasury departments, businesses, etc.) in the CEMAC zone are facing sanctions ranging from simple blame to total exclusion from the system, according to the severity of the lacks which are identified during on-site evaluations carried out by the CEMAC Regional Committee for Method of Payment Monitoring.