CB’s new guidelines for mobile phone payments

RAMANI KANGARAARACHCHI

The Central Bank (CB) in consultation with the National Payments Council (NPC) has drawn up a road map to improve the payments and settlement infrastructure in the country to ensure a robust and efficient financial infrastructure, said Governor, Central Bank Ajith Nivard Cabraal at the presentation of Monetary and Financial Sector Policies for 2009 at the Central Bank Auditorium recently.

He said that given the increased usage of mobile phones for financial transactions, the Central Bank will issue new operating guidelines for mobile payments during 2009. The draft regulations on service providers of payment cards giving specific powers to the Central Bank to regulate and supervise such service providers, would also be implemented to enhance public confidence in electronic payments.

Cabraal said that the CB took several initiatives to strengthen the anti money laundering and combatting terrorist financing and reporting activities.

These included the strengthening of the existing regulations and issuing new rules on Know Your Customer and Customer Due Diligence (KYC/CDD) to the insurance sector and the securities industry and formulating a mechanism to deal with suspicious transaction reports and other (FIU) of the Central Bank will also expand the (KYC/CDD) coverage during 2009, he said.

The FIU would also enhance its international cooperation in exchanging financial intelligence by entering into MOUs with other countries to strengthen the anti-money laundering and terrorist financing activities, said Cabraal.