“On 22 July 2013 the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Integrated Regional Electronic Settlement System (SIRESS) became operational in the four countries of the Common Monetary Area (CMA): South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland.
This is a first step to implementing a common electronic cross-border payment system across all member states of the SADC regional economic community (REC).The implementation supports the aims of other SADC initiatives, such as harmonisation in trade tariffs, smoother and efficient border controls of trade transactions, and integration in information and communications technologies. This project introduces a regional interbank settlement system. However, there are also plans for regional clearing capability
for low-value (electronic funds transfer) credits and debits; regional clearing capability for card and ATM transactions; and regional central securities settlement
systems are being explored.”
