The Central Bank of Morocco, Governor, Abdellatif Jouahri, has said that blockchain is a truly disruptive technology and wants the country to expand access to financial services through the integration of fintech, including blockchain technology.
Speaking at the Africa Blockchain Summit in Rabat, capital city of Morocco, which was organized by the Moroccan Central Bank and EuroPlace, Jouahri said:
“Fintech will provide all individuals and businesses a fair access to formal financial products and services in order to promote economic and social inclusion.”
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The Central Bank of Morocco (Bank Al Maghrib) intends to improve the country’s financial inclusion among the under-served citizens by application of fintech. In order to do this, it will create lower-cost models and develop favorable conditions for non-cash transactions and settlements.
The central banks around the world are increasingly recognizing the potential of blockchain technology to disrupt the traditional financial services business model.
The Africa Blockchain Summit 2019 in Rabat included ‘Central Banks Governor Summit’ that featured two round tables to discuss the issues below:
- How the Blockchain technology is considered by the central banks: Challenges and opportunities?
- How is the disruptive potential of the Blockchain technology and how can the potential benefits of blockchains be used while remaining compliant with the current regulatory framework?
- How is the disruptive potential of the Blockchain technology and how can the potential benefits of blockchains be used while remaining compliant with the current regulatory framework?
- How blockchain-based technologies could simplify complex intermediation processes for payment and settlement activities. Virtually all payment service providers are therefore currently looking for ways to apply this technology. Its use in payment transactions is an obvious choice, as the cryptocurrency bitcoin has already been created for this purpose.
- How Blockchain could accelerate financial inclusion, corporate financing (ICO market, etc), facilitate new market infrastructures
A synopsis of the White Paper that resulted from the discussion reads:
“The Africa Blockchain White Paper is seeking to identify the way to support the development of Blockchain-based technology in financial services. The white paper will identify how the Distributed Ledger Technologies as regard for its capacity to accelerate financial inclusion, the development of market infrastructures to explore new solutions to facilitate the African and Mena Region economies funding, to develop new payment solutions, etc.
The aim of the white paper is also to encourage dialogue between all the stakeholders with an interest in Blockchain in African and MENA countries.”
Morocco has already been dabbling in decentralized ledger technologies having already carried out a cross-border securities settlement between the Central Securities Depositories (CSD) of Morocco and the Kuwait Clearing Company, the CSD of Kuwait, using the Quartz blockchain.
While Morocco has previously outlawed cryptocurrency payments, we might expect a decision reversal as the country becomes more open to the possibilities and opportunities that blockchain has to offer.
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