REGIONS in Africa have made significant progress in integrating their cross-border payment systems, says Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago.Speaking at the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) African regional conference in Cape Town on Tuesday, Mr Kganyago said this trend might have contributed to the global decline in correspondent banking relationships and, if so, was a welcome development.In the past, cross-border financial payments in Africa had mostly been facilitated through correspondent banking arrangements with banking partners mostly located in the US or Europe. These relationships were still in use today but were being found to be inadequate and inefficient, Mr Kganyago said.Across the continent regional arrangements had emerged in West, East and southern Africa to develop more efficient transaction mechanisms, which will hopefully lay a solid foundation for intra-African trade and investment."The advantage of these mechanisms is that t...

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