Now that all commercial banks have gone live on the National Financial Switch (NFS) on Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and Point of Sale (PoS) channels, the industry intends to fight back by enhancing their automated mobile money or mobile banking offering
The banking industry mobile money and mobile banking platforms are expected to go live at the end of the second quarter of 2021 [by 30 June 2021].
The NFS, which went live on September 28, 2018 on a trial basis, is the first ever local nationwide shared platform, which will facilitate exchange of information on digital payments throughout the country.
Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times –ZBT, Bankers Association of Zambia (BAZ) chief executive officer Leonard Mwanza said so far all banks that have deployed card services are live on the NFS on ATMs and POS channels and everything is working well.
“All banks who have deployed card services are live on the NFS on ATM and POS Channels and all is working well. The only remaining bit is on mobile money or mobile banking platforms, which are expected to go live by end of second quarter of 2021,” Mwanza said.
He said the other phase, which involves the mobile payment channels had already kicked off with some participants already using the platform. The establishment of the NFS started in 2014 as a project under the auspices of the Zambia Electronic Clearing House Limited, a company owned by the Bank of Zambia (BoZ) and commercial banks, but operates as an independent entity, whose objective is to provide interbank clearing and payment services in the country.
The NFS project has been implemented as a two-phased project; with phase one involving the switching of ATM and PoS transactions from the VISA, MasterCard or any other international switching platform to the NFS platform, while phase two will involve switching mobile payments transactions.
The full implementation will be a major milestone and will fundamentally transform the way business is conducted in Zambia with great benefits accruing to the economy as a whole. The NFS transactions now are much more cheaper than what obtained when switching with international payments providers.
This will also increase the security of transactions as they will predominantly take place in an electronic environment as opposed to paper based payment instruments as well as allow for faster circulation of funds in the economy due to the reduced delays in customers receiving funds.
Prior to this migration, all domestic card transactions were switched outside the country and treated as international transactions and were accordingly priced as such. However, following the migration locally, all domestic ATM and POS transactions by various commercial banks are now being switched or carried on the NFS platform with effect from September, 2018.
This means that debit or credit card holders can now transact on any of the 14 participating banks’ ATMs countrywide and their transactions will be switched locally through the NFS following a successful trial and cut over period for the implementation of the ATM phase of the project.
