In recent weeks, we Told you about InterSwitch East Africa. The firm was formed after Nigerian payments company Interswitch Transnational Holdings acquired a majority stake in Paynet Group.Interswitch’s market proposition is integration and seamless connectivity across different payment platforms. The company’s solutions are spread out from digital payments, card payments besides offering payment infrastructure.
From the infrastructure front, Interswitch has been a provider of Switching services in Nigeria, Uganda and most recently Kenya through Interswitch East Africa. Imagine walking to a mall, say The Junction. You are looking for your bank’s ATM but unfortunately, your bank does not own one. You then opt to use the available ATMs but on cross-checking the receipt, your bank has deducted extra charges for using your ATM in a bank different from your account holding bank. Frustrating right? With Interswitch, this limitation is eliminated. Interswitch East Africa formerly Paynet Group has partnered with various banks that allows for banks on its Pesa Point switch not to incur the extra charges. This in turn means you can transact at whatever bank ATM you want as long as its on the Pesa Point network.
Secondly, to roll out and maintain an ATM network is an expensive task for a bank. Interswitch seeks to fill this gap through its services. Think of the mall you visit often. There are five ATMs by different banks, meaning all the banks have to incur rental charges for this space. In addition, each of the banks will need to maintain the network of these ATMs. Interswitch services eliminate this extra charges for banks, by ensuring one works for all.
Last week, we analyzed Mobile banking Apps in Kenya. While we were all in agreements that Apps by most banks are pesky, it is important to note that most implement switching. Through switching, a user can via USSD, Web or even via Apps send money, take loans, receive deposits and even pay bills. This already widely implemented by Interswitch in Nigeria through a Central Switch that powers all these transactions for users from e-commerce to mobile banking. That is the power of the switch, Powered by Interswitch.
