Sector Savings and Credit Cooperatives (Umurenge SACCOs) are set to further increase financial inclusion in Rwanda with their latest partnership with electronic payment services provider, MobiCash Limited.
The Rwanda Cooperative Agency (RCA), which regulates SACCOs has given MobiCash the go-ahead to have all SACCOs use its electronic payment gateway to offer financial services to the people, a move which the agency believes will boost financial inclusion while promoting a cashless economy simultaneously.
“Since SACCOs are closer to the people at grass-root level, it will now be easy for people to use MobiCash’s technology to carry out transactions such as making their Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) payments (both fiscal and non-fiscal) at their convenience,” said Francisca Mukakarangwa, the Director of the SACCO Coordination unit at RCA.
She added that the use of MobiCash will also enable the SACCOs register more ofthe unbanked and underbanked population.
“We urge more people to embrace the technology through SACCOs in order to improve access to financial services,” she said.
There are currently 416 Umurenge SACCOs spread out across the country out of which 122 so far have signed up to use the MobiCash platform.
MobiCash’s technology span covers a wide variety of uses and offers services that can be used whether or not one has a bank account or a mobile phone.
The platform is completely mobile network agnostic (independent of Mobile Network Operators) and can bank the entire spectrum of a country citizenry using biometric authentications.
Pascal Nyagahene, the MobiCash Rwanda Chief Executive Officer said they are committed to bringing fundamental innovation, convenience and easy access to banking and payment services to “everybody” especially those not served by financial institutions and regardless their financial status (the Unbanked), thus deepening the financial sector.
Among thefinancial services supported by the MobiCash platform include the payment of all Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) fees (both fiscal and non-fiscal) such aspayment of Visas and passports, cash-in and cash-out transactions, money remittance and other Value Added Services like purchase of airtime from all mobile networks, pre-paid electricity (cash power) and pay television subscriptions.
“We want as many people to use MobiCash to transact at their convenience,” he noted.
MobiCash, which was licensed to provide mobile financial services by the National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) in September 2014, is a viable option for the payment of government services and seeks to provide a platform for both public and private sector institutions for people to make electronic payments.
Today, the company has over 350 agents spread out across the country, providing a reliable agency banking model to Rwandans, thus deepening financial inclusion further.
To have an account with MobiCash, one just needs to go to their nearest MobiCash agent and start transacting.
Nyagahene said that they use people’s identification, which provides optimum security to their accounts from fraud, in that everyone has a unique identification that can’t be stolen.
“We found the use of biometric identification as the way to go because of its many advantages and protection from cyber theft which is often linked to the weak nature of passwords when it comes to electronic payments,” Nyagahene explained.
Commenting on the use of the platform, Sam Nsengimana, an accountant at Ijabo SACCO in Kicukiro district said the platform was easy to use for most of their clients and that it presented another revenue stream for SACCOs through the sharing of commissions earned on transactions using MobiCash.
“We hope more people continue to use the platform, thus increasing on our earned commissions for our cooperative members to share,” he noted.
About MobiCashLimited.
MobiCash Rwanda Ltd is a secure cashless mobile financial platform. Its commitment is to bring a fundamental innovation with convenience and easy access to banking and payment services to everybody including those not served by financial institutions regardless their financial status; thus, deepening the financial sector.
MobiCash solution offers a refreshing approach to mobile payment that overcomes the challenges of cashless payment. It uses multi-factor authentication mechanisms such as; fingerprint, Near Field Communication (NFC) Cards and Voice biometric technology to bank entire populations.
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