The euro is the official currency of 20 of the 27 member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the euro area or, commonly, the eurozone, and includes about 344 million citizens as of 2023. The euro is divided into 100 euro cents.
Jamaica has diplomatic relations with many nations and is a member of the United Nations and the Organization of American States. Jamaica chairs the Working Group on smaller Economies.
The Caribbean Community is an intergovernmental organisation that is a political and economic union of 15 member states throughout the Americas and Atlantic Ocean. They have primary objectives to promote economic integration and cooperation among its members, ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared, and coordinate foreign policy. The organisation was established in 1973, with its four founding members signing the Treaty of Chaguaramas. Its primary activities involve:
Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems are specialist funds transfer systems where the transfer of money or securities takes place from one bank to any other bank on a "real-time" and on a "gross" basis to avoid settlement risk. Settlement in "real time" means a payment transaction is not subjected to any waiting period, with transactions being settled as soon as they are processed. "Gross settlement" means the transaction is settled on a one-to-one basis, without bundling or netting with any other transaction. "Settlement" means that once processed, payments are final and irrevocable.
The CARICOM Single Market and Economy, also known as the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), is an integrated development strategy envisioned at the 10th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) which took place in July 1989 in Grand Anse, Grenada. The Grand Anse Declaration had three key Features:
- Deepening economic integration by advancing beyond a common market towards a Single Market and Economy.
- Widening the membership and thereby expanding the economic mass of the Caribbean Community.
- Progressive insertion of the region into the global trading and economic system by strengthening trading links with non-traditional partners.
The Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) was organised on 1 May 1968, to provide a continued economic linkage between the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean. The agreements establishing it came following the dissolution of the West Indies Federation which lasted from 1958 to 1962.
African Export–Import Bank, also referred to as Afreximbank or Banque Africaine d’Import-Export, is a pan-African supranational multilateral financial institution created in 1993 under the auspices of the African Development Bank. It was officially launched at the first general meeting of the shareholders in Abuja, Nigeria, in October 1993. It is headquartered in Cairo, Egypt. Afreximbank is a financial provider to African governments and private businesses in support of African and Caribbean trade.
Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu OON is a Nigerian political economist. He served as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, appointed by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, from 2009 to 2014. He subsequently taught at Tufts University as Professor of Practice in International Business and Public Policy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy from 2015 to 2017. He was the presidential candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) in the country's general election in February 2019.
Barbadian–Nigerian relations are foreign relations between Barbados and Nigeria. Barbados and Nigeria formally established diplomatic relations on 24 April 1970. Nigeria is accredited to Barbados from its high commission in Port of Spain,. Currently the Barbadian Government does not have foreign accreditation for Nigeria, however the Nigerian Government has said that it was highly desirous of Barbados establishing a high commission directly in Nigeria.
CLS Group, or simply CLS, is a specialized financial infrastructure group whose main entity is the New York-based CLS Bank. It started operations in 2002 and operates a unique and global central multicurrency cash settlement system, known as the CLS System, which plays a critical role in the foreign exchange market. Although the forex market is decentralised and has no central exchange or clearing facility, firms that chose to use CLS to settle their FX transactions can mitigate the settlement risk associated with their trades. CLS achieve this thanks to a central net and gross payment versus payment settlement service directly connected to the real-time gross settlement systems of participating jurisdictions through accounts at each of their respective central banks.
Reparations for slavery is the application of the concept of reparations to victims of slavery and/or their descendants. There are concepts for reparations in legal philosophy and reparations in transitional justice. Reparations can take many forms, including practical and financial assistance to the descendants of enslaved people, acknowledgements or apologies to peoples or nations negatively affected by slavery, or honouring the memories of people who were enslaved by naming things after them.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an Indian instant payment system developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in 2016. The interface facilitates inter-bank peer-to-peer (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions. It is used on mobile devices to instantly transfer funds between two bank accounts. The mobile number of the device is required to be registered with the bank. The UPI ID of the recipient can be used to transfer money. It runs as an open source application programming interface (API) on top of the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), and is regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Indian Banks started making their UPI-enabled apps available on the Google Play Store on 25 August 2016.
A central bank digital currency is a digital currency issued by a central bank, rather than by a commercial bank. It is also a liability of the central bank and denominated in the sovereign currency, as is the case with physical banknotes and coins.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a free trade area encompassing most of Africa. It was established in 2018 by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which has 43 parties and another 11 signatories, making it the largest free-trade area by number of member states, after the World Trade Organization, and the largest in population and geographic size, spanning 1.3 billion people across the world's second largest continent.
An automated clearing house (ACH) is a computer-based electronic network for processing transactions, usually domestic low value payments, between participating financial institutions. It may support both credit transfers and direct debits. The ACH system is designed to process batches of payments containing numerous transactions, and it charges fees low enough to encourage its use for low value payments.
Dedollarisation refers to countries reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, medium of exchange or as a unit of account.
The European Payments Initiative (EPI), previously known as the Pan-European Payments System Initiative (PEPSI), is a European Central Bank-backed payment-integration initiative aiming to create a pan-European payment system and interbank network to rival Mastercard and Visa, and eventually replace national European payment schemes such as France's Carte Bancaire and Germany's Girocard.
The recent history of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) has been marked by continuous exploration and development. Over 100 countries were actively engaged in CBDC research in June 2023, with 11 countries, territories or currency unions having launched CBDCs, and 21 implementing pilot programs by October 2023.
The Digital Rupee (e₹) or eINR or E-Rupee is a tokenised digital version of the Indian Rupee, issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The Digital Rupee was proposed in January 2017 and launched on 1 December 2022. Digital Rupee is using blockchain distributed-ledger technology.
Benedict Okechukwu “Okey” Oramah, CON, is a Nigerian economist who currently serves as President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).
