BY SETHABILE MYENI
MBABANE – Domestic switch on the card.
Central Bank of Eswatini Governor Phil Mnisi says the country will have domestic switch services starting from next year.
Mnisi said everyone who is paying with an ATM card in this country their payments were going via South Africa and they were not paying through the country which made the costs to be too high. He said the domestic switch services will commence in March next year because of the increasing rate at which people use their bank cards to make payments.
The domestic switch services link ATM/POS transactions systems of the member banks with domestic companies, allowing cardholders to implement online payment transactions via ATM and Point of Sales (POS).
“This service will make Mobile Money independent as well because at the moment its operations should rely on a bank. Momo also have high costs because it charges of the transactions as well,” said Mnisi.
He also mentioned that without the domestic switch services, the electronic transactions process was unmanageable for the banks which then affects the reserves of the country. He said this service would boost the reserves of the country.
Mnisi explained why the domestic switch delayed saying the number of clients paying using cards was not high compared to those paying with cash thus the financial sector was not pushed to deploy the domestic switch. Also, some banks felt it was not feasible.
