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The Bank of Zambia (BoZ) will soon issue directives to compel all exporters to route their earnings through a bank account at a financial institution domiciled in the country to combat anti-money laundering, among others.
This announcement was made by the BoZ Deputy Governor-Operations, Francis Chipimo, at the National Symposium on the 2024 budget in Lusaka on Monday.
This means that all export earnings would be required to be reflected in an account at a commercial bank domiciled in Zambia from January 2024.
This followed the implementation of the Export Tracking Framework by the Central Bank in 2024.
While the framework would be executed, Chipimo said exporters would retain full rights and control of use the funds as they deem fit.
Chipimo, however, clarified that this could only be done provided exporters complied with Anti-Money Laundering, Combating the Financing of Terrorism Proliferation Financing obligations as has been the case under the current foreign exchange arrangement.
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“Consultations with stakeholders to fully engage and appreciate how the Framework will work already commenced through the Public Private Dialogue Forum (PPDF) and will be scaled up prior to implementation on January 2024,” he said.
He noted that the Central Bank had already developed a Framework by linking the e-BoP Monitoring System to ASYCUDA WORLD (Zambia Revenue Authority) to ensure validation of all export information.
Chipimo said the bank had issued circulars to commercial banks and money transfer operators to ensure that their customers undertaking cross border transactions obtain a Taxpayer Identification Number (TPIN) and comply with e-BoP Monitoring System reporting requirements.
He outlined some of the benefits that would come with the implementation of the framework, saying that the arrangement was expected to create several spin-off benefits such as creating more transparency in international financial flows.
Contributing to financial sector integrity by curbing trade-based laundering was another benefit highlighted by Chipimo.
He also said: “This will create a database of aggregate statistics that would be useful in conducting national money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessments that the country is required to undertake under the Financial Action Task Force Recommendations.”
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