Charles Castel, Governor of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH) announced that his institution will establish, in January 2013, the electronic clearing of checks that will gradually replace the physical clearing, which will allow to reduce the time currently 5 to 10 days, depending on where the bank is located, to just 2 days on the entire country.

"With this electronic clearing of checks, banks will have to receive only the image of checks and it is this image that will be in the compensation," according to the Governor of the BRH, beyond reducing the time, this technology will allow the reduce the frauds.

During the transition period of 3 months, the two clearing systems of checks, will coexist.

However, some commercial banks have indicated that they wanted to see this measure comes into effect only at the beginning of February "Whether it's in January or February, this measure wil be truly effective," affirmed Charles Castel.

In addition, the Governor of the BRH, has announced that starting January 3, 2013, any payment or transaction in Haiti by credit card will be made in gourds, adding that under this measure [announced last year] "BRH no longer accepts the use of the U.S. dollar as currency of exchange. Because it creates an artificial need of dollars," assuring, however, that the BRH had no problem with the holders of bank accounts in U.S. dollars.

HL/ HaitiLibre