Morocco’s Central Bank Urges Mobile Banking Push to Reduce Cash Dependency

The Kingdom "has lost too much time" in setting up this instrument so important for financial inclusion and the fight against cash, laments Mr. Jouahri at the end of the 3rd quarterly meeting of the BAM council for the year 2020.

The Wali of Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM) finds a double interest in this tool. It allows significant gains in terms of time and cost of executing operations. Everything is ready technically and the human resources are already on the job, he reassures, adding that Parliament cannot remain on the sidelines of this operation. Parliament is seen as a stakeholder in creating this ecosystem.

The Wali of BAM also recommended the establishment of a "very strong" tax incentive and the launch of a pilot operation, like that of "Tayssir" as an illustrative example and in a pilot region like Casablanca.

According to the central bank’s figures, the pace of growth in the M3 aggregate went from 3.9% in the first quarter to 6.9% in the second quarter of 2020. This reflects an acceleration in the progression of currency in circulation by 20.1%, mainly due to the massive outflows generated by the "Tadamoun" operation and the holy month of Ramadan.