People who love electronic transactions will now be able to buy products and pay for services using their mobile phones at POS terminals, a development that is being enabled by a new partnership between MTN and Barclays Bank.
MTN and Barclays Bank have teamed up to roll out a service that allows Ghanaians to purchase wide-ranging products by linking their mobile wallets to Point of Sale or POS payment systems.
According to Vimal Kumar, the managing director & CE, Retail and Business Banking at ABSA Group Limited, the POS payment service will first be tested in Ghana but there are also possibilities of rolling it out across the continent.
“Barclays have today enabled its(sic) customers to pay on POS machines using their mobile wallet,” Kumar said in a statement.
“In partnership with MTN we have launched this capability in Ghana and are excited at the possibilities of linking into the mobile money ecosystem in Africa.”
MTN and Barclays will now be competing with credit cards in their new partnership. Instead of using asking for your credit card, a waiter at a restaurant or bar will now need your phone number so that they can access your mobile money account.
Africa has a vibrant and fast-growing mobile money market and researchers say that the Africa Mobile Money Market will be worth $14.27 billion by 2020.
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In Ghana, where MTN and Barclays Bank are kicking off their new initiative from, a recent report showed that its mobile money had grown by three-fold in three years.
Kenya and Uganda have the largest mobile money markets on the continent.
Meanwhile, some people, commenting on Kumar’s post, punched holes in the new development between MTN and Barclays, describing as “clunky” and slower compared to swiping a credit card.
“Process slightly clunky. Swiping seems easier and faster,” said Eddie Ndichu.
Adding to Ndichu’s comment, Gabriel Setoutwe said: “This is right… but I am looking at it as another avenue towards all-inclusive migration to cashless txn. Process will take care of the fraction who have neither Chip & PIN cards nor NFC enabled SIM cards but operate from Telcos Wallet or any other platform that the solution integrates with. Thinking.”
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