Liberia's financial sector faces several challenges, including inadequate ICT infrastructure. The existing payment infrastructure deployed in 2016 has served the country well over the past six years but requires urgent upgrading.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) will finance the Liberia Payments Infrastructure and Systems Upgrade Project. For the said project, the Board of Directors of the African Development Fund, the AfDB's concessional lending window, approved a $3.9 million grant on Friday, March 17. 

“The modernization of Liberia’s payments infrastructure and systems to improve payments efficiency will not only strengthen the formal financial sector but contribute to greater financial stability and improved private sector development,” explained Benedict Kanu, African Development Bank country manager for Liberia.

According to an AfDB release, the financing will target the automated check processing and automated clearing house systems, as well as the real-time gross settlement systems that form the backbone of payment processing in the country's financial sector.

It will also finance the upgrading of the Central Bank of Liberia's main data center and “impact the institution and government ministries involved in the payment.”

The main objective is to strengthen Liberia's payments ecosystem for increased efficiency and to foster growth and innovation, as well as financial inclusion, which currently stands at 44.2 percent according to the World Bank's Global Findex 2021 database.

Samira Njoya