Maldives Instant Payment System ‘Favara’ launched

Maldives Instant Payment System (MIPS), ‘Favara’ developed under the Maldives Payment System Development project, to facilitate fast, convenient and secure payment services in the Maldives, has been officially launched on August 26, 2023

At a ceremony held at Crossroads Maldives by Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) system was launched by the Vice President of the Maldives Faisal Naseem. 

With the launch of Favara, 3 banks in the Maldives are currently onboarded as Participants of the system – Bank of Maldives, Maldives Islamic Bank, and State Bank of India. Hence, the services will be initially available for customers who have an account at one of these three banks, for transactions conducted among these banks.

The services of Favara will be available for customers round-the-clock 365 days a year, facilitating the processing of inter-bank transactions instantly. In addition to instant funds transfers, two new services – Favara ID and Favara Request – were also introduced.

Favara ID is a service that enables customers to use easy-to-remember identifiers such as phone numbers and e-mail addresses to initiate payments instead of using account numbers. With Favara Request, customers can send a request seeking a payment from another customer. This service can be used by both individuals as well as businesses seeking payments from their customers.

All services of Favara will be availed from the digital channels, such as internet banking or mobile applications of the respective bank or service provider of the customer. At the time of launching, the maximum limit for a FavaraTransfer has been set at MVR 50,000, and for FavaraRequests, the maximum limit is MVR 5,000.

Favara will facilitate the services of Favara ID and FavaraRequest for both intra-bank and inter-bank transactions for the participating banks. However, the Bank of Maldives has decided not to provide the service of FavaraRequest for transactions between accounts held at the Bank of Maldives.

Although the system is initially being launched with 3 banks, the remaining banks in the Maldives are also currently in the process of being onboarded to Favara.
As a way of encouraging competition in the market and providing a level playing field for banks and payment service providers (PSPs) to introduce innovative digital payment solutions in the market, MMA also plans to allow PSPs to be participants of the system in the future.

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Ibrahim Yaafiu

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