Pilot coming for regional payment system

Cari­com is mov­ing clos­er to a re­gion­al pay­ment sys­tem that could al­low con­sumers and busi­ness­es to make in­stant cross-bor­der pay­ments in lo­cal cur­ren­cies, cut­ting trans­ac­tion costs and re­duc­ing re­liance on for­eign re­serve cur­ren­cies.

Re­gion­al cen­tral banks are ad­vanc­ing work on the pro­posed Cari­com Pay­ment and Set­tle­ment Sys­tem (CAPSS), with a pi­lot ex­pect­ed af­ter fur­ther con­sul­ta­tions and tech­ni­cal eval­u­a­tions in the com­ing months.

The Cen­tral Bank of T&T, in a news re­lease yes­ter­day, said, CAPSS is in­tend­ed to make re­gion­al pay­ments faster, cheap­er and more ef­fi­cient while strength­en­ing trade and eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion among mem­ber states.