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Common Monetary Area blocks Namibian EFT payments for certain South African banks

Common Monetary Area blocks Namibian EFT payments for certain South African banks

As of Monday, 23 September, clients from local banks will no longer be able to receive money from, or make Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) payments to, certain banks in South Africa, the Bankers Association of Namibia announced this week.

According to a statement issued Wednesday, local bank clients who currently receive money from, or make EFT payments to banks including Citibank, Capitec Bank Limited, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, Bidvest Bank Limited, SA Reserve Bank, Grobank Limited, SASFIN Bank, South African Post Office, Mercantile Bank Limited and Tyme Bank Limited will no longer be able to do so.

Other banks that will be affected are; Discovery Bank, Finbond Mutual Bank, Grindrod Bank Ltd, Habib Overseas Bank Ltd, HBZ Bank Ltd, Investec Bank Ltd, JPMorgan Chase Bank
Mercantile bank Ltd, BNP Paribas Corporate and Investment Banking, Postbank (SAPO), Sasfin Bank Limited, Societe Generale, South African Reserve Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, State Bank of India SA, Ubank (was Teba Bank Ltd effective 06/10/2010), SA Bank of Athens Ltd and VBS Mutual Bank.

This is due to a directive by the Common Monetary Area Payment System Oversight Committee, which issued a directive in 2018 that changed the payment information requirements for Common Monetary Area transactions to meet international standards relating to anti-money laundering practices.

However, the Bankers Association noted that these clients will still be able to receive SWIFT payments from these banks.

SWIFT is a compliant, secure and reliable way to make international payments, which could mean a longer waiting time to receive funds from these banks into your Namibian account and thus a negative impact business cash flow and commitments. SWIFT payments could be more expensive than the EFT payment option.

“Transactions to ABSA, FNB South Africa, Standard Bank SA and Nedbank SA will only require a mandatory update of beneficiary details such as full names and addresses,” the Bankers Association said.


 

About The Author

Donald Matthys

Donald Matthys has been part of the media fraternity since 2015. He has been working at the Namibia Economist for the past three years mainly covering business, tourism and agriculture. Donald occasionally refers to himself as a theatre maker and has staged two theatre plays so far. Follow him on twitter at @zuleitmatthys