This is coming at the heels of two-year intensive process by the National Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) as it certified SmartPesa mPoS for the Nigerian market.
Revealing this to ITRealms, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Innovectives, Mr. Emmanuel Agha, said that SmartPesa mPoS enables an existing banking network to be mobile, flexible and extensible at very low cost.
He also said, SmartPesa mPoS works with existing banks, not against them, and so does not have the problems that plague proprietary mobile money solutions such as opening special accounts, reliance on customer behavioural changes and unclear legal/regulatory frameworks.
“Cards are here to stay: with over 20 per cent per annum growth, cards continue to be seen to be the workhorse of banking and payments around the world,” he said.
Listing the key benefits of the SmartPesa platform, he said its provides a low cost alternative to traditional PoS solutions.
As said by him, SmartPesa immediately provides all the benefits of a traditional Point of Sale (POS) solution at less than 20 per cent of the cost.
“The platform can be quickly extended to include functions traditionally handled at branches and ATM’s such as balance enquiries, cheque deposits, and transfers at well less than 1 per cent of the cost. Support costs are also significantly lower since distribution of devices can be through retail stores, ordinary mail or branch offices and faulty hardware can be immediately swapped out locally,” he said.
Agha equally assured on security and compatibility, explained that with EMV Level 2 compliance in hardware, SmartPesa supports the highest level of payment security (Chip&PIN) and could accept all local and international cards; that’s over hundreds of millions of cards globally.
The platform, he said, could quickly incorporate new technologies including Near field communication (NFC) and be integrated into existing applications through its Software Development Kit (SDK).
The system, he further said, is compatible with over 97 per cent of current smartphones in use, including most low cost smartphones and commonly available tablets.
In addition, Agha said the platform was designed to be implemented in a financial institution’s existing data centre alongside the existing payment infrastructure (e.g. HSM, Switch). Transactions do not need to go to a 3rd party datacentre thus maximising transaction speed whilst there is no risk of data leakage to 3rd parties.
He emphasized that SmartPesa conforms to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) guidelines, which ensures all banking and privacy regulation are satisfied from the start. Besides, Agha said, the platform could be quickly extended beyond simple payments to include bill payment, agency banking and 3rd party services such as airtime and ticketing.
“Unlike traditional POS devices, SmartPesa can update all devices to support future local and international cards, loyalty schemes or integrated inventory systems. Updates are done remotely and do not require costly hardware recalls or customer visits,” he said, even as they are finalizing on a robust national rollout plans with its partner banks and card payment scheme.
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1 comment:
...now that mobile mobile is struggling to take off in Nigeria compared to mpesa in Kenya, it's high time we changed the path to financial inclusion....#thenewbankbranch
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