In Morocco, the financial system has been undergoing a steady evolution, marked by the growing use of automated tools alongside more traditional methods of payment. At the heart of this transformation is Bank Al-Maghrib, the country’s central bank, which plays a crucial role in overseeing the infrastructure that handles monetary flows and ensuring the standardization and security of payment instruments.
The first layer of this system involves transactions that take place within the same banking institution or group—referred to as intra-bank operations. For a long time, these internal exchanges were difficult to measure with precision. But that changed in 2013 when Bank Al-Maghrib introduced a new data collection framework. Today, twenty banks report detailed information on these internal transactions, supplementing data from the operators that run the country’s payment systems. As a result, authorities now have a much clearer picture of the scale and nature of these in-house financial movements.
The next tier consists of interbank operations—transactions conducted between clients of different banks. This level forms the backbone of Morocco’s non-cash payment system. These cross-bank exchanges are processed through automated and standardized channels, which help ensure that payments move smoothly and securely between institutions. It’s a system designed not just for efficiency, but also to reinforce financial stability across the board.
Alongside these dominant mechanisms is a far less visible channel: bilateral exchanges. This pathway is reserved for non-standardized instruments that fall outside the scope of the country’s electronic interbank settlement system, known as SIMT. Instruments such as certain types of checks and promissory notes that don’t conform to standardized formats still circulate via direct agreements between banks. Since the closure of Casablanca’s manual clearinghouse in 2009, these documents have been exchanged directly between financial institutions, governed by custom agreements outlining how they should be settled.
Though this channel accounts for just 0.03% of all interbank transactions, it still exists—largely because of non-standard promissory notes, which make up nearly half of the volume and over 90% of the total value in this category. Their continued use, despite their marginal weight, underscores how certain legacy instruments remain relevant in specific economic sectors.
The simultaneous presence of these three pathways—automated, standardized systems on one end and legacy manual instruments on the other—illustrates the complexity of Morocco’s financial ecosystem. It’s a system in transition, where modernity and tradition still intersect. For Bank Al-Maghrib, this structure not only offers a comprehensive overview of financial flows but also serves as a tool for identifying potential inefficiencies and promoting further standardization in how payments are made.
