The Securities and Exchange Commission has said the implementation of its agreement with the Pan-African Payment Settlement System will encourage intra-African trade and aid diversification within the capital market.

A statement by SEC on Sunday quoted the Head of the Office of the Chief Economist of SEC, Dr. Okey Umeano, as saying this in Abuja.

The Nigerian Exchange Limited and the Pan-African Payment Settlement System in February signed a Memorandum of Understanding to support cross-border payments across capital markets in Africa.

According to Umeano, the implementation of the MoU will make it easy to trade across Africa.

He said, “This MoU begins to implement something that we have been very excited about. PAPSS makes it easy to trade across Africa. It makes Intra-African trade more efficient and we have always wanted it. It was created initially for just the usual everyday trade but we have always wanted it for the capital market because we think that if we can link the exchanges and the markets across the continent we will have a bigger opportunity set for everybody, so we have been working on that.”