Payment and Settlement Principles for Africa's Market

To support safe and stable market functioning, and to mitigate discordance and incompatibility risks, this paper proposes the establishment of a common set of Afro-market-centric foundational principles (“African Core Principles for Systemically Important Payment Systems”, or “Afro-SIPS Principles”) to provide a baseline framework of standards to which all African cross-border payment systems – including systemically important national payment systems – should adhere and incorporate into their applicable rulebooks and risk management frameworks.

The Central Bank’s Financial Stability Mandate: Sizing up Twin Peaks in South Africa

It is proposed that South Africa as a developing country needs to have a central bank that has the semblance of a developmental central bank, and that takes care of consumers, different than the orthodox, neoliberal central bank that focuses on price stability and lowering of inflation and expect market forces to protect consumers. The Twin Peaks model of financial regulation where the central bank is explicitly appointed as the guardian of financial stability, could be a small step on the way of the SARB becoming such semblance of a developmental central bank.

Twentieth Sovereign Debt News Update: Ghana’s Sovereign Debt Policy Among Others

The African Sovereign Debt Justice Network brings to you an update of African sovereign debt news and updates on events and happenings on and about Africa that reveal how sovereign debt issues are engaged by the various stakeholders.

Nineteenth Sovereign Debt News Update: France’s Campaign for Debt Relief in Africa

The African Sovereign Debt Justice Network brings to you an update of African sovereign debt news and updates on events and happenings on and about Africa that reveal how sovereign debt issues are engaged by the various stakeholders.

Eighteenth Sovereign Debt News Update: African Internal and External Sovereign Debt Policies

The African Sovereign Debt Justice Network brings to you an update of African sovereign debt news and updates on events and happenings on and about Africa that reveal how sovereign debt issues are engaged by the various stakeholders.

Seventeenth Sovereign Debt Justice News: The International Monetary Fund and African Sovereigns

The African Sovereign Debt Justice Network brings to you an update of African sovereign debt news and updates on events and happenings on and about Africa that reveal how sovereign debt issues are engaged by the various stakeholders.

The Bare Bones of the Bank of Namibia Act of 2020

This opinion piece aims to ascertain the extent to which the new Bank of Namibia Act 1 of 2020 (the Act) imports the neoliberal rules of central banking and it also assesses the level of departure, if any, from the conventional central bank mandates couched in law. The piece further highlights the domestication of the rules of the Central Bank Model Law adopted by the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Central Bank of Ghana: A Timorous Soul or a Bold Spirit

The ailing financial sector in Ghana necessitated an immediate pragmatic response to realign and reposition the financial sector back to its glory days. Depositors’ monies are mostly squandered or bolted with by directors and managers of financial institutions in Ghana. The recent clean-up in the financial sector has awakened uproars from some Ghanaians, notable amongst them are the customers of the affected financial institutions. While some vowed to boycott the 2020 elections, others instituted a civil action in court on the grounds of negligence against the central bank. It will be intriguing to know the legal principles for adjudicating this matter in the high court, whether private law principles under tort law (on the basis of which the customers have sued BoG), or public law principles under administrative law (which seems more appropriate for a public body). With the extent of insolvency, licensing irregularities and insufficient minimum capital requirements among financial institutions, the greatest fatherly role played by BoG was not to spare the rod to spoil the child in its quest to salvage the financial sector.