After launching a payment platform with Mxit earlier this year, South Africa’s Standard Bank is now widening the uses of Beyond Payment, its card payment system.
Recently, credit card firm MasterCard commissioned the bank to introduce a payment system for a wine tasting event using the card.
This comes after Standard Bank previously partnered with Mxit, a mobile social site, to introduce a payment platform called Mxit Money.
“Our brief from MasterCard was to develop a cashless payment mechanism that would make paying for the tastings quick and easy, as well as help improve cash management on the premises,” said Mike Hughes, business development manager for Beyond Payments.
The company had four weeks to customise the payment system to accommodate the needs of the client.
“The integration of a fare management system on the card is key and takes us as a bank into a new space in value added services,” Hughes commented on Beyond Payment’s debut project.
The company also helped the eThekwini Municipality in Durban, South Africa launch a fare payment system by introducing the Muvo card to municipality buses.
“The card is unique in that it is both an anonymous debit MasterCard and a ticketing solution that meets the requirements of the National Department of Transport’s (NDoT),” the company said.
Cashless systems of payment are on the increase in Africa, though progress is slow.
Beba, the Google card payment system for buses in Kenya, was launched in May this year but has so far only attracted one bus operator in Nairobi.
There were unconfirmed reports that Kenya’s Tuskys Supermarket could launch a near field communication (NFC) loyalty card, making it easier to reward its customers by offering payment for bus fares.
NFC cards are an easier payment system to deploy and with more stakeholders like banks cashing in, the payment face of Africa might be changing swiftly.
