Golden Sibanda Senior Business Reporter TELECEL Zimbabwe says it has, from the outset, allowed all banks and other licensed operators to...
Golden Sibanda Senior Business Reporter
TELECEL Zimbabwe says it has, from the outset, allowed all banks and other licensed operators to offer financial services to clients using its unstructured supplementary service data mobile platform after unveiling its new mobile money service last week.
TELECEL Zimbabwe says it has, from the outset, allowed all banks and other licensed operators to offer financial services to clients using its unstructured supplementary service data mobile platform after unveiling its new mobile money service last week.
This follows the launch of its mobile money transfer service code named
telecash last week, which was the first mobile payment solution to be
connected to Zimswitch, an instant electronic payment interchange
system.
Telecel Mobile Financial Services director Mr Nkosinathi
Ncube said on issuing the mobile services licence, the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe emphasised the need to ensure interoperability of the system by
allowing other players access to achieve the critical objective of
financial inclusion.
“We connected to Zimswitch because we wanted
customers to enjoy full financial services. So all banks that are on
Zimswitch, through their mobile banking wallets and internet banking,
are able to interact with telecash,” he said.
Telecash allows
registered Telecel subscribers to open and operate mobile phone-based
wallets they can use to send or receive money as well as perform other
payment transactions such as transfer funds to and from their banks, pay
bills to merchants and top up mobile phone airtime.
“By virtue of
us being connected to Zimswitch, from a merchant-retailer point of
view, we are able to develop innovative products Zimbabweans can use to
pay in the market,” Mr Ncube said.
However, Mr Ncube said, Telecel
still retains the right to chose institutions it is willing to allow to
transact on its USSD platform, as part of measures to guarantee total
security.
“From
day one we have opened it (telecash) to all the financial players,
although we will choose who comes in because of security issues, but any
secure financial system, we want it to be able to connect to telecash,”
Mr Ncube said
“For instance, there always are players in the
market who will come and say can we connect to telecash? So, our
definition of security is to say is you system authorised by the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe? It has to pass the tests that the central bank puts
for the payment systems,” Mr Ncube said.
The position contrast
sharply with that of Telecel’s biggest rival Econet Wireless, which was
embroiled in a dispute with banks, primarily, over access to the USSD
platform, and then terms regarding the use of the mobile money transfer
gateway.
The wrangle has become so nasty to the extent banks were
planning to gang up against the company and bar Econet’s banking unit
Steward from transacting on the Zimswitch circuit. Zimswitch is
collectively owned by local banks.
In line with the thrust of
interoperability, Telecel said it was also at advanced stages of talks
with other potential partners such as NGOs, farming organisations and insurance companies for custom structures products they want.
This
was guided by the reality that almost everyone is working with a
limited budget, hence the need to forge as many partnerships as possible
with one way of achieving that being the use of cellphones as the
common payment channel.
Mr Ncube said the telecash mobile money
transfer service was similar and at par with what competition was
offering in the market. He said Telecel will strive to ensure that all
the core services provided by Telecel are accessible on telecash.
To
that end, Telecel said it has already invested over US$2 million
towards developing and integrating the service while additional
resources will be put into further expansion.
The country’s second
biggest mobile telecommunications operator after Econet Wireless is
targeting to connect about 60 percent of its 2,5 million active
subscribers, as per the last three months, to be transacting on telecash
by year end.
As the company rolls out telecash to ensure the
widest coverage, it will not discriminate against agents who also double
up as middlemen for competitors in the mobile services market.
However,
said Telecel, the issue of affordability will be made of paramount
importance to ensure as many people as is possible are able to use the
facility.
Mr Ncube said to ensure seamless integration of the
system Tecelel hired experienced and award winning vendor, OBO Pay from
India, to develop the system as it has done this before in Kenya,
Uganda, Tanzania and the United States.
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