South Sudan-UAE MoU Signals Digital Leap
Last week in Abu Dhabi, the Bank of South Sudan and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates signed a Memorandum of Understanding designed to build a secure national switch for card payments and to accelerate digital banking services across the world’s youngest nation.
“The pact foresees faster transactions, broader inclusion and training for our bankers,” Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel told reporters after witnessing the ceremony in Juba.
Shared Gains for Central African Markets
Analysts in Brazzaville note that a modern switch in Juba can reduce cross-border settlement delays with neighbouring Congo and the greater ECCAS zone, opening room for regional e-commerce, tourism payments and remittance corridors that still rely heavily on cash or slow correspondent banking channels.
The Congolese order of chartered bankers considers the South Sudan-UAE template a practical shortcut toward instant retail payments without large capital expenditure, especially as Congo’s national digitalisation plan 2025 aims to connect every merchant to electronic platforms, according to secretary general Armand Ndinga.
Capacity Building and Knowledge Transfer
The MoU includes secondments, online courses and joint hackathons led by Emirati specialists in cybersecurity and regulatory technology, a detail welcomed by South Sudanese fintech founder Mary Ayor who says start-ups often struggle to access seasoned mentors.
Central African universities could tap the same pipeline, insists Professor Jean-Claude Mavoungou from Marien Ngouabi University, arguing that regional talent exchange will strengthen supervisory skills as mobile-money volumes grow faster than traditional bank deposits across both banks and non-bank telecom operators.
Outlook for Inclusive Growth
World Bank data show that only 13 percent of South Sudanese adults hold a bank account, while Congo sits at 27 percent. By automating clearing and allowing low-cost micro-payments, the new infrastructure could lift those ratios steadily, economists at Afreximbank predict.
Implementation will start with domestic switches before scaling to cross-border rails. A joint steering committee meets in October to plan hardware procurement, connectivity tests and compliance with global PCI-DSS standards, ensuring systems remain resilient amid power outages and bandwidth constraints often seen in frontier markets.