The Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) issued today Monday, December 19^th, 2022, a guidance note on “Adopting Smart Contracts and their Legal Enforceability in Arab Countries” prepared by members of the Arab Regional Fintech Working Group (WG), of which the AMF acts as the technical secretariat. This note stems from the AMF's endeavours to promote awareness of the opportunities and risks of adopting smart contracts in various industries in the Arab countries.

Abu Dhabi, December 8th, 2022: In a ceremony hosted by the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), Mr. Abdulwahed AlJanahi,  Chief Executive of BENEFIT, the operator of the national electronic payment systems in the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Mr. Mehdi Manaa, Chief Executive Officer of Buna, the cross-border payment system operated by Arab Regional Payments Clearing and Settlement Organization “ARPCSO”, owned by AMF,  signed today a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a framework of cooperation between Buna and BENEFIT.  The ceremony was held under the patronage of H.E Rasheed Mohammed Al Maraj, Governor of the Central Bank of Bahrain, and H.E Dr. Abdulrahman Bin Abdullah Al Hamidy, Chairman of the Board of ARPCSO.

The Central Bank of Iraq, the Central Bank of Jordan, the Central Bank of Egypt, and Buna, the cross-border payment system operated by Arab Regional Payments Clearing and Settlement Organization “ARPCSO”, owned by the Arab Monetary Fund, announced a joint Arab initiative to launch cross-border payment service for pensioners in the Arab world utilizing the Buna system.

Abu Dhabi, December 7^th, 2022: Buna (the cross-border payment system operated by Arab Regional Payments Clearing and Settlement Organization “ARPCSO”, owned by The Arab Monetary Fund “AMF”), holds on Thursday December 8^th its monthly workshop number 38 to share updates on its strategic initiatives and other key industry developments.

The workshop will be hosting high-level guest speakers from various organizations, it will be the occasion to announce another key step and strategic partnership supporting Buna’s efforts towards building the instant payment hub for the Arab world and beyond.

The workshop will also host Bank of New York Mellon to shed light on the state of real-time payments in the US and other markets.

The program covers the period (2022-2025), and aims at establishing economic and financial stability in the Republic of Yemen, enhancing fiscal stability and the external position, rebuilding Yemeni institutions and supporting their governance and transparency, in order to enhance the macroeconomic environment to expand and diversify the productive base, support inclusive and sustainable economic growth, and create job opportunities. The program is expected to help put the Yemeni economy on a sustainable path, and support the course of economic and social development, while reducing unemployment and poverty rates.

The program focuses on reform package aiming at strengthening the fiscal position of the Yemeni government, developing the financial and banking sector, and creating an enabling environment to enhance the role of the private sector while scaling up its role in achieving sustainable economic development.

The AMF follows closely the developments of the Tunisian economy and the challenges it faces due to the current global circumstances and works through a fruitful partnership with the Tunisian government to help the country address the different challenges in the most effective way, as the Tunisian economy witnessed positive developments during 2022, recording actual growth rates of about 2.4 percent and 2.8 percent for the first and second quarters of the aforementioned year, respectively, driven by the recovery of the agricultural sector,  increased phosphate production, the growth of the manufacturing sector, especially the textiles, clothing and leather industries, and improvement in tourism revenues and remittances of the Tunisians expatriates.

In line with its continuous efforts to support the decision-making process in the Arab countries, the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) has released a study titled “Implications of Capital Inflows on financial stability in Arab countries”. This study sheds the light on the effect of capital inflows, whether it is direct investment or portfolio investment or other investments, on financial stability on a set of Arab countries and provides analytical framework for Arab countries that help them in improving their efforts in enhancing financial stability.

In this context, paper investigates the impact of net capital inflows on credit to the private sector as a share of gross domestic product. It tries to assess to what extent net capital inflows could lead to excessive credit growth and, hence, undermine financial stability. The results show that net capital inflows may have a negative long run impact on financial stability in the Arab countries through increasing credit growth.