Ezulwini – Convenience for local customers! This comes after payments going through EswatiniBank, Swaziland Building Society (SBS) and Eswatini Mobile wallet, e-Mali now take just about 10 seconds or less to reach clients.
This transpired at the Central Bank of Eswatini complex at Ezulwini during the official launch of the Eswatini Payment Switch Fast Payments module, marking the completion of the first phase of the three phases to be delivered by the end of the Payment Switch Project.
The module went live after being launched by CBE Governor Dr Phil Mnisi, who mentioned that fast payment phase will be followed by the open banking and the Point of Sale (POS) and Automated Teller Machine (ATM) switching features of payment switch.
Fast payment transactions are limited to a maximum of E50 000 for a single transaction for bank accounts and E10 000 per transactions for digital wallets. The daily limit for senders is a maximum of E50 000.
This means that emaSwati can now use the live participants’ digital platforms to transact using their service providers’ existing digital channels, i.e., cellphone banking, apps and online banking. The CBE governor together with Eswatini payments industry, embarked on a project to implement a domestic payment switch. He said the implementation of the local switch addresses the need for enhanced payment architecture that is driven by stakeholder needs, fit for purpose and appropriate for the era of modernised payments system systems globally. Dr. Mnisi said this national initiative aligns with the broader payment digitalisation strategic imperative as outlined in the 2022-2025 National Payment Systems Strategy.
He stated that fast/instant payments continue to gain traction globally as most markets seek to bring convenience to the consumers of financial services by opening up real-time transacting for the payments of goods and services.
Objectives of Eswatini Payment Switch:
- Facilitate systems interconnectedness and interoperability among and between banks and non-bank payment service providers
- Enable processing of payments within seconds and not hours or even days. This will translate to less demand for hard cash payments and create or translate to a cash-lite economy, and
- Provide 24/7 availability of payment services – available at all hours of the week, including weekends and holidays
National Payment Switch benefits for Eswatini
- Reduced banking costs
- Improved customer convenience
- Increased interoperability
- Open banking
- Reduced reliance on Rands
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