Two additional banks - Bank of Ceylon (BOC) and Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB) – have been on-boarded as participants of the Maldives instant payment system, Favara.

Launched on August 26, Favara was developed by the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) under the Maldives Payment System Development (MPSD) project, to facilitate fast, convenient and secure payment services in the Maldives.

BOC and MCB become the two newest participants of Favara on Sunday, following the successful completion of the pilot testing phase, and all necessary arrangements required from them.

The banks’ customers can now access all the services of Favara, inclusive of Favara Transfers, Favara Request, Favara ID and Favara Recall.

The services of Favara are now available through a total of five banks in the Maldives – including Bank of Maldives (BML), Maldives Islamic Bank (MIB), and State Bank of India (SBI).

The name of the system – Favara – is an acronym reflective of three key features of the system in Dhivehi. That is, Faseyha (easy), Vaguthun (instant) and Rahkaatheri (secure).

The system established interoperability among all service providers, enabling instant clearing of funds for inter-bank transactions, allowing customers to send and receive money to and from anywhere in the Maldives within seconds, regardless of the service provider their payment account is held with.