Payment News from Around the World Africa
M-Pesa increases reach in Tanzania
M-Pesa’s 8 million customers in Tanzania can now carry out international money transfers to 200 countries. This service is added to their ability to access e-payments, savings and loans, overdrafts and its virtual debit card function through their mobile phones and the 106,000 agents in the country. The Bank of Tanzania announced at the same time that it is increasing limits on digital transactions and received balances of mobile wallets in order to provide relief and ensure continuity of service during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zambia supports digital payments
Dr Denny Kalyalya, Governor of the Bank of Zambia, recently made a speech where he outlined measures taken to support digital payments. As part of the Bank’s pandemic response it has, like the Bank of Tanzania, increased transaction and balance limits on
Asia
Card and mobile payments advance in India, but have a long way to go A new report from S&P Global Market International says that mobile payments increased 163% in India in 2019 while debit and credit card payments only increased 24%. Google Pay and India’s PhonePe achieved 7 billion transactions on the Unified Payment Interface, approximately two thirds of the total. Despite these advances, the report estimates that card and mobile payments still only accounted for 21% of India’s $781 billion spent in stores.
e-wallet and money transfers. In addition, it has waived fees on P2P transfers up to a value of K150, capped the Merchant Discount Rate for transactions on POS to a maximum of 2% of the value of the transaction, and reduced transaction fees on Real Time Gross Settlement and Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT). Zambia is keen to increase usage of digital channels as part of its journey to being a digital economy. The World Bank has recently issued its Digital Economy Diagnostic Report for 2019 looking at the impact of technology on the economy. Over the last four years, mobile money payments have increased by 126% in value on average each year to K49.45 billion, POS transactions have increased by 560% to K20.09 billion and EFT has averaged growth of 35% from K21.83 billion in 2015 to K67.81 billion in 2019.
Payment change and innovation in Vietnam
The State Bank of Vietnam reported that in the first four months of 2020 there has been a 26.2% increase in domestic banking transactions. Compared with 2019 there has been a clear move to mobile payments, with volumes increasing 189% but the value increasing by slightly less at 166%. A Consumer Payment Attitude survey by Visa found that 37% of those surveyed used a contactless card and 42% used a mobile payment app to pay. Three banks – TPBank, Vietinbank and Sacombank – installed technology to allow account holders to withdraw cash from ATMs by scanning a QR code, while Eximbank and Vietbank have ATMs and offices that let people withdraw cash from ATMs using their fingerprint for authentication.
Europe
Acquisition brings new phone payment option to Turkey
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has provided a loan to the Dubai-based TPAY Mobile so that they can acquire Turkey’s payment platform Payguru. TPAY Mobile’s solution allows users to make purchases by charging payments to their mobile phone carrier bills or pre-paid airtime balance, as well as wallet stored value.
6 CASH & PAYMENT NEWS | AROUND THE WORLD
As part of the deal, TPAY Mobile took over an electronic money transfer platform which allows banks card-free transfers, deposits and withdrawals through a network of 30,000 ATMs or 75% of the cash machines in Turkey. TPAY Mobile is already active in 24 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, working with 54 telecoms and e-wallet providers.
Kenya supports non-cash payments In a 90-day agreement that was a response to the pandemic, mobile money transaction fees were waived on transaction values of Sh 1,000 or less. In addition, banks did not charge consumers to move money electronically from their banks to mobile money wallets. Effectively Safaricom, with its M-Pesa product, which is reported to have 99.9% of these transactions, is the sole provider. Safaricom reports that this cost them Sh1.7 billion. This agreement was intended to encourage people to pay electronically rather than with cash. The Central Bank of Kenya reports that between 20 April and 10 May, daily average mobile transaction values for payments of Sh 1,000 or less increased by 83% to Sh 1.98 billion compared with before the fee waiver. For payments with a value of more than Sh 1,000, transactions fell 18.4%.
Changing payment practices in Asia Mastercard has carried out an Impact Study in Asia to understand how payment practices are changing. They surveyed 10,000 people in Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore and the results are consistent with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, namely cash usage has dropped and card and mobile payments are up.
While reported cash payments have dropped between 59% (the Philippines) and 67% (Singapore), cashless payments of all types only increased by 15-18%, indicating a significant drop in economic activity. Mobile wallet usage has increased by more than contactless card usage; for example, in Malaysia, wallets increased 40% while debit cards increased by 26% and credit cards by 22%.
Apple faces anti-trust investigations
The European Commissioner (EC) has concerns that Apple may be distorting competition and reducing choice, quality and innovation in payments due to its terms and conditions and because it does not allow proprietary bank payment apps to work with its near field communication system.
