Buna has announced that it has plans to launch instant payments, in addition to trade finance solutions, securities settlement and ATM/ POS processing service, at a later stage.
This growing list of innovative solutions will complement Buna’s current offering of multi-currency cross-border interbank payments, commercial payments, and consumer remittances.
Buna has already onboarded four currencies since its launch 12 months ago by the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF). These are the Emirati Dirham, the Egyptian Pound, the Saudi Riyal and the US Dollar. So far, approximately 90 banks from the Arab region are being onboarded out of more than 130 that are in various stages of preparation.
Buna was launched and created as a regional payments market infrastructure that aims to deliver advanced, secured, and highly efficient payment solutions, and can cater to the growing needs of financial institutions and their diversified client base in the region and beyond, without any geographical or technical barriers. In doing this, Buna is working closely with SWIFT.
Mehdi Manaa, Chief Executive Officer of Buna commented:
“Transforming a regional payment landscape”, Manaa shared his thoughts on the positive impact of the cross-border payments system on participating banks in the Arab region and beyond and presented the added value that Buna is bringing to the payments industry by improving the speed, cost-effectiveness and transparency of cross-border payments flows in regional and key international currencies.
“We can’t think about a well-functioning economy without the support of appropriate payment solutions,” Manaa explained at his SIBOS session. “It’s a virtuous circle. Buna is supporting the economic growth of the region, and the economic growth of the region will support Buna.”
“This is a transformation, for the benefit of the economies of the region, empowering them to increase integration. Business models that would benefit from integration will see a lot of value in the system,” said Manaa.
He highlighted the advantages of Buna which extend to banks outside the region. “Offering a single access point to a broad region through a single market infrastructure, with efficiency, speed and low costs, is a huge change. For any trading partner, it makes cross-border payments and access to the region as simple as for a single country,” he concluded.