
By Nkhosinathi Manyika
Countries within the Common Monetary Area (CMA) have moved to regularize electronic funds transfer payments, starting from 30 September 2024.
According to a media release from the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA), low-value electronic funds transfers (EFTs), debit and credit payments made between Common Monetary Area (CMA) countries, namely Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa, will now be treated as cross-border transactions and subject to greater due diligence requirements.
The release states that previously, these low-value retail payments were treated as domestic payments, with the four CMA countries and their participating banks processing the transactions via South Africa’s domestic retail payment system.
This provided a low-cost effective and efficient payment service to clients, however, to enhance compliance with international standards, their payment system and processes had to be regularized.
The release further states that this action will prevent criminals from having easy access to EFT payments to launder funds along with other benefits, ensuring that, this misuse can be identified more effectively when it occurs.
This step also forms part of CMA member states efforts to address several recommendations made by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to strengthen anti-money laundering, counter the financing of terrorism, and combat proliferation financing (AML/CFT/CPF) regime.
According to the release, banks operating in the CMA region have elected to process these low-value retail payments using the regional payments infrastructure (i.e. the Southern African Development Community real-time gross settlement (SADC-RTGS) system) primarily used for high-value payments.

The changes will also include a new approach to the treatment of debit orders.
The release notes that from 30 September 2024, financial institutions will no longer be able to process debit account holders in other CMA countries as a domestic customer or policyholder.
Debit orders collected from customers’ accounts within the CMA countries will have to be initiated from an account located in the respective CMA country.
These measures will provide customers with greater protection as domestic central banks and conduct authorities will have in-country recourse against any unscrupulous debit order practices.
The SARB and the CMA Cross-border Payments Oversight Committee (CPOC), established by CMA central bank governors to oversee and coordinate various cross-border payment initiatives, are working to ensure that retail customers and businesses are not adversely affected by these regulatory changes.