Buna

Overview

Buna is a cross-border, multi-currency payment system for the Arab region and its trading partners, established by the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF). It is operated by the Arab Regional Payments Clearing and Settlement Organization (ARPCSO), a company based in Abu Dhabi and fully owned by the AMF [2][2][4]4. Buna lets central banks and commercial banks send and receive cross-border payments in both regional and international currencies in a compliant, lower-cost and faster environment than traditional correspondent banking [1][1][4]4. Like PAPSS, Buna is a settlement/clearing rail rather than a QR symbology: it is the multi-currency infrastructure beneath bank and instant-payment flows in the Arab region.

History

• 2018 — The initiative was launched as the Arab Regional Payment System (ARPS) by the Arab Monetary Fund [2]2.
• February 2020 — The system was officially launched and rebranded Buna at the World Governments Summit period; it is operated under the ARPCSO framework [3][3][5]5.
• 6 November 2023 — Buna's payment-versus-payment (PvP) FX functionality went into use between Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) and Jordan Ahli Bank [2]2.
• 2025 — Syria acceded to Buna, allowing its financial institutions to settle in Arab and international currencies more efficiently [4]4.

Buna sits within the wider Arab Monetary Fund, which has 22 member countries, providing the institutional and regulatory umbrella for the system [3]3.

Technical specification

Buna is a real-time gross settlement (RTGS)-style multi-currency platform supporting payment-versus-payment (PvP) FX settlement [2][2][4]4:

• Currencies — Buna supports six currencies: four regional currencies — the Emirati dirham (AED), Egyptian pound (EGP), Jordanian dinar (JOD) and Saudi riyal (SAR) — and two global currencies, the euro (EUR) and US dollar (USD). Participants are not required to be active in all six; an institution chooses the currencies it wants and opens accounts accordingly [3]3.
• PvP settlement — FX transactions can be settled in any pair of the supported currencies, with both legs exchanged simultaneously to remove settlement risk [2]2.
• Operating hours — the platform operates six days a week (Sunday to Friday) [3]3.
• Compliance — Buna selected an LSEG/Refinitiv solution as a compliance/screening provider, reflecting an emphasis on AML/sanctions screening built into the rail [5]5.
• Governance — owned and operated by ARPCSO, fully owned by the Arab Monetary Fund and headquartered in Abu Dhabi; leadership has been led by AMF-appointed officials [2][2][4]4.

The system reduces transaction times "from days to minutes" and lowers operational costs for banks compared with multi-hop correspondent routing [4]4.

Use cases

• Inter-Arab settlement — clearing and settling financial transactions between Arab countries [1][1][4]4.
• Trade with partners — settling transactions between Arab countries and their main trading partners using EUR and USD alongside the regional currencies [3]3.
• Cross-border bank payments and FX — banks settle cross-border payments and execute FX in any supported currency pair via PvP [2][2][3]3.

Implementations

Connectivity is measured by participating institutions rather than code:

• Six currencies supported (AED, EGP, JOD, SAR, EUR, USD) [3]3.
• Over 100 financial institutions onboarded since inception [3]3.
• Named participants include Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Jordan Ahli Bank and Saudi British Bank (SABB) [3]3.
• Underpinned by the Arab Monetary Fund's 22 member countries, with new national accessions such as Syria in 2025 [3][3][4]4.

Comparison

Buna is the Arab-region counterpart to Africa's PAPSS: both are regional, multi-currency clearing/settlement systems owned by regional financial institutions (Arab Monetary Fund vs Afreximbank/AU). The principal differences are scope and currency set — Buna settles a fixed basket of regional and global currencies (including EUR and USD) for the Arab region with explicit PvP FX, while PAPSS focuses on netting African local currencies for the AfCFTA bloc [3][3][4]4. Both are distinct from Nexus, which interlinks national instant retail payment systems globally via a single multilateral connection, and from the ASEAN RPC, which is a QR-acceptance and fast-payment coordination umbrella rather than a settlement engine [2][2][4]4.

Fun facts

• Buna's PvP design means a euro-for-dirham or dollar-for-riyal exchange settles both legs at the same moment, eliminating the "Herstatt" settlement-risk window that plagues conventional cross-currency settlement [2]2.

Status

Buna is live. It launched in February 2020, activated PvP FX settlement between its first banks on 6 November 2023, supports six currencies across more than 100 financial institutions, and continued to add national members in 2025 (including Syria) [2][2][3][3][4]4. No single consolidated public transaction-volume figure was confirmed in the sources reviewed, but the platform is in production six days a week [3]3.

Sources

1 Buna — official site — Arab Regional Payments Clearing and Settlement Organization, 2025 2 Buna (payment system) — Wikipedia, accessed 2026 3 Buna (payment system) — currencies, institutions and AMF membership — Wikipedia / Arab Monetary Fund, 2025 4 Syria Joins Arab Monetary Fund's BUNA Payment Platform — Levant24, October 2025 5 Arab Monetary Fund Selects Refinitiv as Compliance Provider for Buna — LSEG/Refinitiv, November 2020

Deployments

No country reports mention this standard by name.

Regions / aggregations not mapped to a single country

• Arab region