The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) is drafting a regulatory framework for the Payment, Settlement & Clearing System operators, Fortune reported.

The directive will be applicable to companies, such as Premiere Switch Solutions (PSS), established by Awash, Nib and United banks in 2011, for the joint use ATMs and Point of Sale (POS) terminals. Recently, Berhan International and Addis International banks have joined PSS.

In the directive, operators are those that provide payment services. These range from payment transaction switching and clearing; payment transaction processing; renting, driving/managing and monitoring ATMs, PoS terminals and similar payment devices; serving as a gateway for international card payments and conducting research, technical support and advisory services in the payment system area.

Since July, the NBE has sent two draft versions of the directives to stakeholders for comment, according to Fortune.

The draft directive requires operators to maintain a paid-up capital of more than 30 million Ethiopian birr in order to get license in addition, operators must be a share company, with 75pc of shares owned by financial institutions.

Source: Fortune