Fearing sanctions for non-declaration of bank accounts they hold in Morocco in their countries of residence or host countries before September 2021, many Moroccans living abroad (MRE) would have rushed to their banks to empty their accounts.
The financing rate granted by participatory banks recorded a strong increase of 47.5% year-on-year, with 14.36 billion dirhams (MMDH) in February 2021.
Many Moroccans living abroad are worried following the publication of information according to which they are obliged to declare their bank accounts held in Morocco. The Governor of the Bank of Morocco tries to reassure and affirms that this is not the case, at least for the year 2021.
Scheduled to end on March 31, the amnesty on bounced checks has been postponed. A decree voted on Thursday, March 25, 2021 in the Council of Government has just extended it until the end of the state of health emergency.
As part of the OECD’s international tax conventions, all Moroccans residing abroad are required to include their bank accounts held in Morocco in their tax returns. This decision will come into effect in 2021 and will be followed by heavy penalties in case of non-compliance.
Moroccans residing abroad (MREs) who have not so far declared to their countries of residence the bank accounts held in Morocco will be subject to heavy penalties, after the launch in September 2021 of the data exchange between the signatory states of the "Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information for Tax Purposes (AEOI)".
Visa and the Moroccan Interbank Monetary Center (CMI) have just announced the increase of the card verification limit to 600 dirhams in Morocco . A change that will allow consumers to make large purchases without entering the PIN code and contactlessly.
Elected "safest bank in Morocco", Attijariwafa Bank has just been named "best investment bank" in the kingdom by the magazine Global Finance. Last October, this bank had already won the awards for "Safest Bank in Morocco" for the 2nd consecutive year and "Safest Bank in Africa".
After its adoption during the health period, contactless payment seems to be taking hold in the habits of Moroccans. In collaboration with Visa and Mastercard, the Interbank Monetary Center (CMI) has raised the ceiling for contactless payments without PIN entry on electronic payment terminals (POS) to 600 DH instead of 400 DH today.
In its latest banking system dashboard, Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM) indicates that the banking rate stood at 78% in June 2020, compared to 79% in December 2019.
The Sanctions Commission of the Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority-ACPR has fined Attijariwafa Bank (AWBE) with a reprimand and a fine of 500,000 euros for failure to combat money laundering.
In Morocco, the health crisis related to the coronavirus has accelerated the banking transformation. Online payments have experienced a meteoric success in 2020.