Zimbabweans will be able to transfer money online and buy products on the web after the Zimswitch vPayments was launched in the southern African country.
The payment gateway is a collaborative effort by Zimbabwe’s uMax brand, Central African Building Society (CABS) and Zimswitch.
Zimswitch is an electronic funds switch network that links most of Zimbabwe’s banks through ATMs and points of sale.
Michael Weeden, uMax interim Chief Executive, said: “The vPayments platform will enable Zimbabweans to transfer funds from their ordinary accounts into an online account and transact in real-time.”
This new real-time online payment gateway service will be available to all banks that are on the Zimswitch network.
Reported to be loosely modeled on PayPal, vPayments will make use of One Time Passwords (OTP) to provide security for transactions.
Kevin Terry, CABS Managing Director, said: “What’s happening with Zimswitch is that they have got this vPayments project where we have been running a pilot with uMAX…So now we can link it to the phone as well and it becomes another product that you connect into your payments system. So we can have a mobile wallet and you can use that to shop online.”
