The Confederation of Economic Associations (CTA), the largest employers' organization in the country, believes that the instability in the payment and transaction system is creating significant negative impacts on the economy and on the confidence of users of the national financial system, as well as on the business environment.

According to the president of the CTA's Information and Communication Technologies and Financial System departments, Paulo Oliveira, quoted in a statement released by the association, "it is embarrassing for economic agents or citizens to have financial resources and not be able to use them, either at the moment, afterwards or the next day, due to the retention of monetary values".

"In particular, companies in the commercial sector that deal with the public, and therefore use POS, are the ones that suffer the most, with their daily turnover compromised," the entrepreneurs lament.

It is estimated, according to the CTA, that around 16.7 million accounts face these problems. For example, if each person wants to use a minimum of 200 meticais a day to buy something, the economy loses around 3.3 billion meticais, especially at the end of the month.

For Paulo Oliveira, because of this situation, making payments these days entails very high transaction costs, associated with the costs and time of going to bank branches, waiting time and other unquantifiable costs such as the loss of trust between customers and service providers, extra remuneration, affecting the credibility of the national financial system in addition to aspects associated with security, which undermines efforts towards financial inclusion.

"Given the seriousness of this situation, we are surprised at the silence of the Regulatory Body and other relevant entities in the national financial system," the source added, stressing that the CTA believes it is crucial that the Bank of Mozambique and SIMO itself address these problems urgently, identifying the root causes of the problems and implementing effective solutions as soon as possible.

In addition, the Mozambican business community urges the Simo Network to clarify to the public the process of reversing/returning the amounts stolen from users in order to guarantee greater transparency in the destination of the funds and for the credibility of the entire financial system.