In line with the Bank of Zambia Amendment Act No. 1 of 2013, the Bank has designed a new framework for monitoring balance of payments (BoP) transactions. This is intended to promote the efficiency of the foreign exchange system as well as improve balance of payment statistics. Under this framework, all commercial banks will be required to submit their daily foreign financial transaction reports to the Bank of Zambia through an electronic monitoring system. These include payments made to foreign parties by Zambian residents as well as the payments received by Zambian residents from foreign parties irrespective of their value.

To this effect, commercial banks would ensure that clients conducting cross-border financial transactions provide accurate and full description of the payment to be made. This include the purpose of transaction, the sector of entity (person transacting), the tax identification number (TPIN) as well as the destination/source country.

To facilitate consistency of currency and country variables, the e-BoP will use ISO 4217 for Currency variable (https://www.iso.org/iso-4217-currency-codes.html) and ISO 3166 for countries and territories variable (https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html).

Major Benefits of Electronic BoP Monitoring

• It will complement accuracy of BoP statistics; and
• E-BoP Monitoring will help shape more informed policy decisions on economic management.