{"id":62781,"date":"2025-10-11T07:53:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/african-trade-bloc-comesa-launches-digital-payments-system"},"modified":"2025-10-11T08:06:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T08:06:20","slug":"african-trade-bloc-comesa-launches-digital-payments-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/african-trade-bloc-comesa-launches-digital-payments-system","title":{"rendered":"African trade bloc COMESA launches digital payments system"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa has launched a digital payments system to cut transaction costs by allowing businesses to settle deals in local currencies, it said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>COMESA, which has 21 member states including Egypt, Kenya and Ethiopia, joins efforts by the African continent to push for local currency payments systems to cut trade costs by eliminating the need to convert local currencies into hard currencies, mostly U.S. dollars, for cross-border payments.<\/p>\n<p>The new platform, known as the Digital Retail Payments Platform, is starting off with trials between Malawi and Zambia, COMESA said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>It is being rolled out in partnership with two digital financial services providers and a foreign exchange provider, the bloc said without naming the partners.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor the first time, cross-border trade within COMESA can be settled directly in local currencies,\u201d said Kenya\u2019s trade minister Lee Kinyanjui. \u201cThis is a game-changer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The initiative seeks to assist medium, small and micro enterprises, who account for 80% of business and 60% of employment in member states, but have to deal with \u201ccumbersome, insecure and expensive\u201d cross-border payments systems, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are demonstrating how traders can exchange value seamlessly without relying on scarce foreign currency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The payments platform will aim to keep costs under 3% of the value of the transaction, the minister said. Kenya\u2019s President William Ruto, who took over the chairmanship of COMESA from his Burundian counterpart, called for increased integration to boost trade.<\/p>\n<p>Kenya has increased its shareholding in regional trade finance banks TDB and Afreximbank, by $100 million and $50 million respectively, Ruto said, as a sign of its commitment to deepening trade integration.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the most viable pathways for Africa, and for regional economic blocs like COMESA, is to strengthen our home-grown multilateral financial institutions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Lesotho<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa has launched a digital payments system to cut transaction costs by allowing businesses to settle deals in local currencies, it said on Thursday. COMESA, which has 21 member states including Egypt, Kenya and Ethiopia, joins efforts by the African continent to push for local [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":62780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[245],"class_list":["post-62781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-lesotho"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>African trade bloc COMESA launches digital payments system - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa has launched a digital payments system to cut transaction costs by all ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/african-trade-bloc-comesa-launches-digital-payments-system\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"African trade bloc COMESA launches digital payments system\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa has launched a digital payments system to cut transaction costs by all ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/african-trade-bloc-comesa-launches-digital-payments-system\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-11T07:53:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-11T08:06:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2025\/10\/sm_1760157206.990525.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1728\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1151\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/african-trade-bloc-comesa-launches-digital-payments-system#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/african-trade-bloc-comesa-launches-digital-payments-system\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"African trade bloc COMESA launches digital payments system\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-11T07:53:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-11T08:06:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/african-trade-bloc-comesa-launches-digital-payments-system\"},\"wordCount\":319,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/african-trade-bloc-comesa-launches-digital-payments-system#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2025\/10\/sm_1760157206.990525.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Lesotho\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/african-trade-bloc-comesa-launches-digital-payments-system#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/african-trade-bloc-comesa-launches-digital-payments-system\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/african-trade-bloc-comesa-launches-digital-payments-system\",\"name\":\"African trade bloc COMESA launches digital payments system - 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