Asean banking panel agrees transparency principles
The Asean Central Banks' Working Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems has adopted principles for product transparency and disclosure on cross-border trade settlements.
The principles are designed to ensure that customers have clear, timely, easily accessible and comparable key information to make informed decisions when settling cross-border trade transactions.
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand will be the first to implement the principles by next month, while Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam will adopt the principles later in the year.
These principles are aimed at improving the efficiency of cross-border trade settlements between Asean economies.
To strengthen regional economic integration further, the committee is also undertaking a study on establishing key enablers to promote the use of local currencies for cross-border trade settlements.
The committee also aims to improve the payment and settlement infrastructure for Asean member countries that will stand ready to support financial integration within the Asean Economic Community (AEC). Collaboration and support among committee member countries in improving domestic payment-system infrastructure are required to facilitate the establishment of safe, efficient and smooth functioning cross-border payment services.
The Asean central banks established the committee in April 2010 to improve the payment and settlement systems of all 10 Asean countries to support financial integration within the AEC.
The committee conducts studies and provides policy recommendations to foster integrated, safe and efficient payment and settlement systems in the region in the areas of trade settlement, remittances, retail payments, capital markets and standardisation.
