As Africa’s rapidly evolving fintech space continues to grow, the landscape will witness the emergence of innovative solutions and platforms that further ease payment for goods and services. However, going forward we foresee that select solutions – including the five highlighted below, will play a greater role in shaping the ecosystem.
The five solutions, recently designed and unveiled by Interswitch, Africa’s pioneer electronic payment provider, are Biometric Authentication Solution, Card Fusion, Secure Tokenisation, Quickteller Business and Smart PoS.
These solutions were unveiled at the company’s TechConnect event which was held at the prestigious Oriental Hotel in Lagos and is expected to boost the payment industry in Africa and provide more secure payment solutions to financial institutions, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs), merchants and their customers.
According to Interswitch, the idea behind these solutions is to address digital payment fraud, problems with card issuance and portfolio management.
Here is a review of the five solutions as carried out by ITPulse’s Team:
Biometric Authentication Solution: Biometrics are no doubt one of the most suitable means of reliable and prompt identity verification and authentication, leveraging unique biological characteristics. Thus, the solution utilizes physiological features unique to everyone, such as fingerprints, voice and facial features to verify payment transactions. The Interswitch Biometric Authentication Solution enables the safe, prompt and convenient use of a fingerprint for the authentication of transactions on ATMs, POS terminals and mobile channels, but takes this service a notch higher by enabling interoperability between banks. A further check indicates that the solution incorporates Interswitch’s expansive expertise in transaction switching and processing, maintaining security, and monitoring, dispute resolution, settlement and reconciliation.
Card Fusion: The Interswitch Card Fusion service is an end-to-end solution for card production, preparation and issuance. The solution allows for instant issuance of all card types and brands, giving banks full control over the card issuance process.
With the solution, bank branches are enabled to initiate and conclude new card production requests, and issue the produced card plastic to customers, all in a matter of minutes. Card Fusion is powered by world-class payment technology and fully supported round-the-clock by a dedicated team of technology experts and customers.
It guarantees:
- Enhanced customer experience through support for instant card requests, personalization and issuance, in-branch.
- Elimination of errors in card production processes caused by manual intervention in the handling of card request data, by the operations team.
- Fees raised from the automated tracking and batch posting of expected card issuance income per branch.
- Overall increase in transaction volume as customers can re-attempt transactions upon clarification received on previous attempts via SMS.
Secure Transactions with Tokenization: Interswitch’s Tokenisation Solution improves transaction security by replacing sensitive account information, such as the 16-digit account number, with a unique digital identifier called a token. Internet of Things (IoT) and connected society appears to have been top of mind when this solution was being designed as it creates that reliable extra layer of safety, allowing customers to carry out transactions anywhere, at any time without worrying about the safety of their account details or funds.
With tokenization, sensitive card credentials like Primary Account Number (PAN), expiry date) are replaced with substitute values which increase transaction security. Only the token PAN is provisioned on the payment device while all sensitive card credentials are stored in a token vault. Other features of the Interswitch Tokenization solution are improved card portfolio value proposition, ability to integrate into digital wallets (Google Wallet, Apple pay) via wearables and positioning businesses to collect on behalf of international merchants such as Netflix, Spotity.
Quickteller Business: This particular solution is designed with Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in mind. It is an all-inclusive, easy-to-use payment solution for all business types. Beyond receiving payments, Quickteller business comes with robust features for optimal business management. It is offered as a complete package, as it empowers financial institutions to activate the SME and MSME segment of their market and offer other benefits such as customized brand identity, revenue potential, increase customer affinity and market share growth and cost-effectiveness. The features and functionality of the Quickteller Business include Multiple Payment Options, Seamless Onboarding, Merchant Reporting and Admin Portal, Invoicing, Bank Admin/Control Centre, StoreFront Functionality and Payment Links & Recurring Payment.
- Smart POS Solution: The Interswitch Smart PoS solution offers more in terms of payment options like payments with all local cards, pay with USSD, pay by QR Code, pay by transfer, pay by PayCode and pay by international cards. The solution enables SMEs and merchants in Africa to accept payments seamlessly and better manage their transactions. It is powered by Android Operating System and equipped with a high-voltage battery for long-lasting performance.