ALGIERS – The local development bank (BDL) and the Company for Automation of Interbank Transactions and Monetics (Satim) signed, Wednesday in Algiers, a partnership protocol to locally process data relating to banking transactions carried out via bank cards. international payment “Mastercard” issued by national banks.

The protocol was co-signed by Mr. Youcef Lalmas, Director General of the BDL and Mr. Madjid Messaouden, Director General of SATIM.

The signing ceremony took place at the headquarters of the general management of the BDL in the presence of the general delegate of the Professional Association of Banks and Financial Institutions (ABEF), Mr. Rachid Belaid, the president of the Monétique Economic Interest Group “GIE Monétique”, Mohamed Bouraï and a number of executives from the two institutions.

Under this agreement, the BDL will have to support SATIM in its project aimed at the progressive processing on a national scale of data relating to banking transactions carried out via international “Mastercard” payment cards issued by national banks.

The project will allow the processing of transfers and banking transactions carried out nationally by “Mastercard” cards both within the country and abroad. The operation is carried out at the processing center under SATIM using the latest technologies to ensure the efficiency and speed required for banking transactions, according to the explanations provided.

On a practical level, the local processing of data from current banking transactions through “Mastercard” will allow national and foreign customers to “benefit from various international services in complete security and at reasonable costs, and to Algerian operators and merchants of receive payments made by foreigners via these cards.

On this occasion, Mr. Messaouden specified to the APS that this project “will be carried out according to a road map developed for this purpose”, indicating that this measure “aims to ensure the independence of foreign processing and to secure the information and data of Algerian customers”.

He added that this agreement and the projects to be implemented “represent an important step in the company’s trajectory to expand its electronic payment services and provide new innovative services for the benefit of customers.”

For his part, Mr. Lalmas indicated that the local processing of data from current banking transactions through “Mastercard” was intended to be “a new departure” which comes in accordance with the guidelines of higher authorities aimed at digitizing the financial sector in Algeria, modernize banks and adapt to developments in the field of electronic payment, in order to meet the needs of the national money market.