rundheersing bheenick : fostering africa ’ s growth in the new reality – from vision to action address by mr rundheersing bheenick, governor of the bank of mauritius, at the opening plenary of the swift africa regional conference, balaclava, 30 may 2011. * * * it is a pleasure to be here this morning and to address you at the opening plenary of the swift africa regional conference. let me add my own words of welcome to the foreign delegates, especially those visiting our country for the first time. i have no doubt that you will be joining the ranks of satisfied repeat visitors as you discover for yourself how right one of our earliest publicists was when he claimed boldly that heaven was copied after mauritius. the name of the publicist? a certain mark twain. he may have been exaggerating – but just a wee bit! i thank swift for giving me the opportunity to share with you some thoughts on the theme of “ fostering africa ’ s growth in the new reality – from vision to action ”. i shall focus on the need to strengthen financial market infrastructure ( fmi ) in our region. fmis play a key role in promoting financial stability and economic growth. when financial markets get the jitters, the world economy grinds to a halt, as we have just painfully re - learnt. it is difficult to think of a more appropriate topic for a gathering such as this at a time when we have all become acutely aware of the importance of strong financial markets for economic prosperity. it is true that much progress has been made in strengthening fmi in africa ; it is equally true that much remains to be done as african financial systems are still lagging behind and are weakly integrated with the global financial system. as policymakers in advanced economies direct their efforts towards global reforms for a more robust global financial system, it may be a suitable time for some fmi initiatives in the african region. first, let me briefly recapitulate the scope of swift ’ s activities and operations in the global fmi, just to give the uninitiated some idea of its systemic importance and explain why regulators take such a close interest in swift. a few metrics will suffice to give you an indication of the criticality of swift to the operation, safety and soundness of the global financial system. since it was set up in the mid - 1970 ’ s, swift has rapidly become an indispensable element of

, in 1946, several decades before the euro, the 14 countries of the west african economic and monetary union ( waemu ) had already adopted a single currency and had actually set up their central bank in 1962, the banque centrale de etats de l ’ afrique de l ’ ouest ( bceao ). 1981 saw the establishment of the preferential trade area, a free trade agreement between east and southern africa, of which mauritius was a foundermember. this was succeeded in 1994 by the common market for eastern and southern africa, which has emerged as one of the pillars of the proposed african economic community. the southern african development community ( sadc ) was launched in 1992, building on the southern african development coordination conference ( sadcc ), itself set up since 1980. mauritius joined sadc in 1994. sadc has worked on the harmonisation of bis central bankers ’ speeches payments systems among its member states with the result that today all members of the sadc either have, or are in the process of implementing, a real time gross settlement ( rtgs ) system. there have been initiatives to integrate african capital markets and one of these is the regional exchange, the bourse regionale des valeurs mobilieres ( bvrm ). in sadc, a number of initiatives have been launched to create a fmi by 2018 on the assumption that there will be monetary convergence and a sadc central bank by that date. there are parallel, if not overlapping, programs and projects at the level of comesa, aacb – the association of african central banks –, and the african union. all of these draw their inspiration from the desire for greater integration in africa, culminating ultimately in the distant future in the realisation of the vision of a united states of africa, with a common currency and a common central bank. however, despite this grand, overarching, vision – and a flurry of loosely - coordinated actions and initiatives to realize it –, the reality on the ground is that, african financial markets remain fragmented and costly. the integration of african payments systems into an fmi has a long way to go. the financial infrastructure of continental africa can best be described in terms of adjectives of extremes. payment systems range from the highly advanced to the underdeveloped ; banking systems range from highly regulated to purely market - driven systems ; and banking penetration ranges from several bank accounts per head to the highest proportion of unbanked people. over the years