Governor Ali Hashim has revealed that the Instant Payment System (IPS) established by the central bank, Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) in collaboration with Tieto Latvia SIA, a subsidiary of TietoEvry, will be used in the Maldives next month.

The Governor made the statement while speaking at a function held at MMA today to sign agreements with the banks participating in Phase I trials of IPS.

Three banks operating in the Maldives have signed an agreement to participate in the first phase of the digital payment system set up to connect the entire country through financial services. These are the Bank of Maldives, Maldives Islamic Bank, and the State Bank of India.

The agreement was signed on behalf of MMA by Assistant Governor Mariyam Hussain Didi.

The agreement was signed between the participating banks and MMA, the operator of the system, by agreeing to the rights and liabilities to be borne by participating in the system.

The MMA today said it has completed user acceptance testing with the banks that signed the 'Participation Agreement' and will begin pilot testing of IPS in the next two weeks.

With this payment system, people will be able to easily send money to each other instantly, irrespective of their location and bank. The system will also enable modern, innovative financial service providers to provide such services through a single platform to the people. This is a major national-level project and MMA believes that it will strengthen the country's financial transactions system and open up more opportunities in the sector.

Speaking on the occasion, Governor Ali Hashim said that though three banks are currently involved in the payment system, efforts are on to include more banks in the system. Hashim said the system will be formally launched in the last week of August.

TietoEvry is already experienced in providing extensive services of such systems around the world. TietoEvry also provided a mobile payment solution called 'Swish' in Sweden and the first real-time mobile payment platform in Finland. In addition, TietoEvry has developed a real-time money transfer solution in Kenya called Pessalink.