Tunisian government bodies, supervising local fiscal policy, as well as the Central Bank, are seeking to push forward e-finance transactions to limit unaccounted operations known as the parallel economy.
Head of the Observation of Financial Inclusion Thaker Hallab said that the country endorses an approach towards generalizing e-payment in all fiscal transactions.
Economist and financial expert Mourad Belkahla clarified that the parallel economy undermines financial liquidity and forces most transactions to take place outside the official banking system.
This has affected Tunisia’s foreign reserves, which have dropped to cover less than 80 supply days whereas the international minimum is 90 supply days.
A huge part of the economic crisis in Tunisia stems from the presence of a financial body parallel to the banking system. This body is represented in funds invested in parallel commerce.
Committees formed by the Central Bank worked on controlling e-payment fees, balancing supply and demand on services and raising awareness among Tunisians on the importance of electronic financial dealings. They aim to contain the money exchanged in the illegal system whose volume exceeds TND4 billion (around USD1.3 billion).
Currently, e-financial transactions do not exceed 15 percent of financial transactions in Tunisia. Direct transactions represent around 85 percent, which allowed a significant amount of funds to escape supervision.
