Central bank governors of the eight-nation Asian Clearing Union ended a two-day annual meeting on Monday, aiming for more members and a technological platform, which would ease exchange deals to help regional trade.
Conceived in 1975 as a club to help foreign exchange-scarce nations in settling payments between central banks, the ACU now hopes to become an instrument to raise trade between members on the back of open economic regimes, officials said.
The ACU comprises of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Iran, which houses the ACU secretariat.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Bimal Jalan told the meeting that most ACU members logged growth rates of more than 4.0 per cent in 2000-01.
"This augurs well for the ACU. However, there is need for better volumes of trade amongst member countries so that the system of ACU could be utilised to the full extent," he said.
Thailand's central bank officials joined the meeting as the ACU wooed them to join the union. Maldives, China, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Malaysia are among potential members.
Some of ACU's members are yet to adopt the "SWIFT" system of inter-bank messaging.
Jalan told reporters new technologies and members were among top priorities. A central clearing house was also being considered, which would pave the way for a "real time gross settlement" to speed up central bank transactions, he said.
The ACU has a settlement mechanism under which foreign exchange transactions of commercial banks of member nations are routed though respective central banks, which helps minimise correspondent bank relations and transaction costs.
The union, which provides for currency swaps, allows central banks two months to complete transactions between each other, with a provision to extend the period by another two months.
In 2002, the ACU, which uses an accounting unit called the "ACU dollar" helped work out transactions worth $6.9 billion.
